Young children love Barnaby, and his appearance in unfamiliar places and environments helps children relate to them. Seeing their own Barnaby in the classroom, and then seeing pictures of his adventures in faraway places helps children bridge the gap between the immediate, familiar environment and more abstract, unfamiliar environments.

Barnaby also enables practical first-hand experience, which is the best way to cover the early years requirement to encourage exploration, observation, problem solving, prediction, thinking and discussion.

Barnaby Bear resources

Barnaby Bear investigates the UK

This SuperScheme aims to help pupils learn and understand more about: the United Kingdom; its location in the world; the UK’s countries and capital cities; seasons; weather; and key human and physical features of urban, rural and coastal locations. This title provides the teacher with advice and guidance on how to approach the topic, an explanation of the geography behind the unit and background information. The whole suggested unit is laid out in the medium-term plan, which is followed by detailed and resourced lesson plans for two lessons.

Barnaby Bear investigates the World

This unit aims to help pupils to widen their knowledge and understanding of the world and develop their geographical skills through the use of maps, atlases and globes. Pupils will learn about the continents and oceans, hot and cold areas of the world and the differences between human and physical features, how to locate the poles and equator and begin to understand global connections.

Wall maps of the UK and the World

You can also purchase specialised Barnaby bear A1 size maps, which are dry-wipeable, to develop pupils’ locational knowledge and geographical skills.

Barnaby Bear’s UK map

Barnaby Bear’s world map

Glove puppet

There is also the glove puppet, available to support learning through Barnaby Bear.

Barnaby Bear investigates a hedgerow

In this free PowerPoint, Barnaby Bear investigates a hedgerow and identifies a number of common plants that can be found in most UK hedgerows during the spring and summer period. This PowerPoint will help you meet some of the National Curriculum KS1 requirements in both science and geography.

There are three PowerPoints and some teachers’ notes:

1. Barnaby Bear Investigates: Hedgerows (teachers version) – for use by the teacher in the classroom.
2. Barnaby Bear Investigates: Hedgerows (simplified version) – for use by children independently or with a little guidance. It is expected that this PowerPoint will be used after the initial class introduction to help consolidate the identification process.
3. Barnaby Bear Investigates: My Plant Information – more detailed explanations of the four plants shown in the PowerPoint, for use by the teacher in the classroom.

Copyright and Licensing Information

Barnaby Bear® is a registered trademark of the Geographical Association. His name and character may not be used without the prior permission and approval of the Geographical Association. If you wish to use the name or character of Barnaby Bear, please contact Elaine Anderson at the Geographical Association giving full details of your proposed use.