Trade and Economic Activity - How did trade get global?

 Today, year 5 started their new topic on Trade and Economic Activity. 

Their first lesson allowed the children to discuss what trade is and what their experiences are. Trading is ‘the buying and selling of goods and services we want and need.’ Next, the children identified how trade is used and how it has increased both locally, nationally and globally.

In small groups they identified different logos of companies and then they looked at how these are found all over the world. Furthermore,  they researched how trade has developed over time: The Stone Age, 17th Century and21st Century. From here, the children found out that trading has occurred since civilisation began. During The Stone Age, people were able to trade at a local level within communities. However, during the 17th Century, people could trade more widely and traded both locally and nationally. However,  this increased further as there was more technology, better transport links and a bigger population to demand more goods and services. Did you know that the value of global trade in 2012 was 18.3 trillion US dollars. 

Here are some of their trade timelines.