Can you guess the theme of our new topic? Exploration!

One of the first travellers was a man called Marco Polo Marco Polo, was a famous merchant and explorer from Venice. In 1271, he set out exploring the Chinese Empire with his father and uncle. The Polos discovered many wonderful things on their travels

Whilst in Beijing, Marco Polo noticed many things he had never seen before. For example the Chinese used printed paper notes as money. Marco Polo had always used coins before this.

Marco Polo was also impressed with the speed of the Chinese postal service. It was run in a way he had not seen in Europe. Whilst on their way back home, the Polos followed an ancient trading route where rich jewels, spices and silks could be found.

Marco Polo published a book about his travels This book was really popular with Italians and around the rest of the world

Written by Marco Polo in his book about a place in China called Tenduc: “Tenduc is part of the Chinese Empire, although there is a local king. The King and his people are Christians. The area produces precious stones and good quality camel hair. Most of the local people are farmers, although there are some craftsmen and traders.

Before great discoverers sailed on their journeys exploring new parts of the world, they listened to everything that other travellers could tell them. Often these tales were frightening. Often these tales were untrue but at the time, the traveller who witnessed the event did not really know what he was witnessing.

On his way home to Italy, Marco Polo was told about a bird called a gryphon! “The actual eyewitnesses report how they fly down, pick up an elephant and take it into the sky. The gryphon then lets the elephant go. It smashes into pulp and the gryphon eats the pieces.” Is this likely to be true? What could the creature be?

Here are some of the stories that were brought back by travellers. A. Far away there is a great sea of gravel and sand. It has not a drop of water in it, but it has great waves. B. There is a place where people get burned black by the sun. C. There is a race of small hairy men who live in the trees. D. The sea is full of great sea monsters which blow water at you. E. There were giant men who had faces in their chests. F. There is a hill from which flows a river of precious jewels. G. If you sail too far, you will sail off the edge of the edge of the world. H. You will reach a place where the sea is all covered in white crystals. 5 minutes - Can you offer any explanations for these stories?! Be prepared to feed back to the class

TASK! – 5 minutes Imagine you are Marco Polo. Design a ‘twitter feed’ for his adventures. You need at least 8 tweets They can only be up to 140 characters! Let’s see who can write the most interesting one! Use key words e.g. China, notes, gryffin Make them funny and interesting!

Wow – they have pieces of paper in China to pay for money! How cool is that?! Explorerdude Marco Polo 1600

Task – 5 minutes Imagine you are a 16 th century explorer who comes to Venice. Make up a travellers tale to tell the rest of the class!

Plenary Write down 5 questions to ask another person based on what you have learnt this lesson. Now swap with a friend!