7.1 Nature, Places, Buildings & Travel Vocabulary

7.1 Nature, Places, Buildings & Travel Vocabulary

Quick Answer: A2 Flyers adds a stretch layer of animals, world-around-us words, places and directions, transport, weather and materials on top of every Pre A1 Starters and A1 Movers item. Teach Flyers-new clusters as the extra marks, but keep earlier words live: a child who knows swan but has forgotten duck still fails a definition. These words appear as Reading and Writing Part 1 definitions, as Listening people-and-place descriptions, and as Speaking difference and story language. Copy the exact wordlist spelling. Do not invent off-list near-synonyms such as turtle or freeway as test answers.

Why Flyers-new is a stretch, not a replacement

The Handbook for Teachers 2024 (thematic lists, pp. 79–84) and the 2025 wordlists print three columns: Starters, Movers, Flyers. Candidates need all three. Flyers-new words are the ones Cambridge added at A2. They often decide a Part 1 line because the five unused words in the fifteen-word box sit in the same family.

Unknown words in a longer text are glossed and are never tested. Do not spend revision time on off-list animals or buildings. If a classroom story needs an extra word, treat it as reading support, not as an exam item.

Animals: shells, wings, wild and extinct

Flyers-new animals and animal parts: beetle, butterfly, camel, creature, dinosaur, eagle, extinct, fur, insect, nest, octopus, swan, tortoise, wild, wing.

Keep the earlier column in play: Starters duck, bird, fish, frog, spider; Movers whale, dolphin, shark, panda, kangaroo, penguin. A Part 1 box that includes swan often also includes eagle or duck. The last half of the definition chooses the word.

Creature is the useful umbrella: any living animal, often in a story (a strange creature in the cave). Fur is the hair on a camel or other animal. Nest is where a bird keeps eggs. Wing is the body part on a butterfly, eagle or swan. Wild contrasts with pet (Starters): a wild animal does not live in a house. A camel is the desert animal with a hump; children meet it in Have you ever ridden a camel? as well as in Part 1.

Do not teach turtle as the US pair for tortoise. It is not on the official lists. The testable word is tortoise.

In Listening Part 1, animal words describe people in the big picture: the girl next to the swan, the boy with the butterfly on his shoulder. In Speaking Part 1, a difference may be In my picture there is a tortoise, but in your picture there is a beetle. In Speaking Part 3, a five-picture story may show Harry finding a nest, then seeing an eagle.

The world around us: water, land, buildings and space

Flyers-new world words: air, bridge, castle, cave, desert, Earth, entrance, environment, exit, fire, future, hill, land, ocean, planet, pond, space, stone, stream, view, wood.

The exam-useful work is size and type, not a dumped alphabetic list:

• Water from small to huge: a pond is small and still (often in a park or garden; a swan may live there). A stream is small and moving. A river and a lake are Movers and larger. An ocean is a huge salt sea. Sea is Starters; do not throw it away.
• Land from low to high: a hill is something you can often walk up. A mountain (Movers) is higher and may have snow. Land is the ground, not water. A desert is dry land with little water, not a beach (Starters sand and sea).
• Trees: a wood is a place with many trees, smaller or more local than a forest (Movers). Wood is also a material. Context in the definition decides: a walk in the wood versus a toy made of wood.
• Rock and stone: rock is Movers; stone is Flyers-new. A castle wall can be made of stone.
• Buildings in the landscape: a castle is old and strong, often on a hill. A cave is a hole in a hill or mountain, not a house. A bridge goes over a river, a road or a railway.
• Going in and out: entrance is the way in; exit is the way out. Both appear on museums, stations and shops.
• Space cluster: Earth is our planet. Space is where rockets and spaceships go. Air is what we breathe; it also appears in in the air.
• Environment is the land, air and water around us. View is what you see from a hill, a castle or a window. Fire is heat and flame (and links to fire station / fire engine). Future is time that has not happened yet (in the future, people may travel in space).

Places and directions: buildings you can name, and the way to them

Flyers-new places and directions include airport, bank, bridge, castle, chemist('s), club, college, corner, east/north/south/west, factory, fire station, hotel, kilometre (US kilometer), left/right, London, museum, path, police station, post office, restaurant, skyscraper, stadium, theatre (US theater), university, way. Related Flyers-new items on the same Handbook list are front, get to, middle, over and straight on. Children still need Starters shop/store, park, zoo and Movers station, library, hospital, cinema, supermarket, sports centre.

Buildings that steal each other's definitions

Read every definition to the last word. The first half often fits two buildings.

• Museum versus castle: a museum is where you look at old or interesting things; a castle is an old strong building, often with stone walls, where kings or a queen lived.
• Stadium versus theatre: a stadium is for a sports match with a team; a theatre is for a play or a concert on a stage.
• Restaurant versus hotel versus Movers café: a restaurant is where a waiter brings a meal; a hotel is where you sleep on a journey; a café is smaller.
• Factory versus office: a factory is where people make things; an office is where people work at desks and have a meeting.
• Fire station versus police station versus Movers hospital: fire fighters and a fire engine live at a fire station; police officers work at a police station; doctors and nurses work at a hospital.
• Chemist's versus hospital: a chemist's is a shop where you buy medicine and a bandage. It is also on the health list.
• Bank versus post office: a bank keeps money; a post office sends a letter and sells stamps.
• College versus university versus Starters school: school is where children go now; college and university are where students go after school. University is the larger study place in Flyers definitions.
• Skyscraper versus building (Movers): a skyscraper is a very tall city building.
• Airport versus Movers station: planes use an airport; trains use a station.

London is the only city name on the Flyers-new place list. It appears in Listening note-taking (the tour starts in London) and in Speaking questions about places.

Directions children must hear as well as read

North, south, east, west appear on maps and in Listening directions. Left and right are already needed for Listening Part 5 colouring (the house on the left). Corner is where two streets meet. A path is a small way for walking, often through a wood or a park, not a motorway. Way is the general word: the way to the museum, which way? Get to is the Flyers-new verb phrase: How do you get to the airport? Kilometre (US kilometer) is the distance unit; both spellings are accepted. Straight on is the instruction to continue without turning. Over a bridge; in the middle of the picture; in front of the castle.

Transport: vehicles, people on them, and the journey

Flyers-new transport: ambulance, bicycle, fire engine (US fire truck), journey, lift (ride), motorway, passenger, platform, racing car/bike, railway, rocket, spaceship, taxi, tour, traffic, wheel.

Keep Starters bike, bus, car, train, plane, lorry/truck and Movers ticket, station, driver, trip, tractor. Bicycle is the full Flyers word for bike; both exist, so copy the word that is in the box.

Lift needs a warning. On the home list at Movers, lift is US elevator (the box in a building). On the transport list at Flyers, lift is a ride: Can I give you a lift to the station? The definition or the picture tells you which one it is. Do not mix them.

Fire engine / fire truck is an official UK/US pair. Both are accepted. Teach the UK form in British classrooms, and show the US form so a Listening speaker with an American accent does not surprise the child.

Weather and materials: short lists, heavy use

The only Flyers-new weather words are fog, foggy and storm. Children still need Starters sun and Movers cloud, cloudy, rain, snow, wind, windy, ice, rainbow, sky. Fog / foggy means it is hard to see. A storm is strong wind and rain. A Listening Part 4 dialogue may say the picnic is cancelled because of a storm, not because it is only cloudy.

Materials are almost all Flyers-new (Starters has paper): card, glass, gold, metal, plastic, silver, wood, wool. They pair with the Flyers-new structure be made of:

• a window is made of glass
• a key may be made of metal
• a ring may be made of gold or silver
• a bottle may be made of plastic or glass
• a sweater may be made of wool
• a table or a toy may be made of wood
• a birthday card is made of card (thicker than paper)

Gold and silver are also on the colour list. Wood is both a place and a material. Glass is a material and, at Movers, a thing you drink from. The definition must supply the job: You can see through this versus You drink water from this.

How the three papers actually sample this vocabulary

Reading and Writing Part 1 is the definition paper. Fifteen words, ten definitions, no pictures on the words. Typical Flyers clusters: animals (swan / eagle / tortoise), places (museum / stadium / theatre), transport (ambulance / fire engine / taxi), materials (wood / wool / metal). Copy the word exactly, including a or an if it is in the box.

Listening uses the same words as descriptions, not as definitions. Part 1: draw a line to the person next to the fire engine or in front of the castle. Part 2: a form may need a place (London), a vehicle, or a number of kilometres. Part 3: match a name to a pictured place. Part 4: three pictures of weather or vehicles; the answer may come late in the dialogue. Part 5: colour the bridge, write a word on the path. Use the ten allowed colours, including grey (US gray).

Speaking Part 1 differences often sit in this chapter: number, colour, position, appearance (a spotted butterfly), activity, shape and relative size (the hill is bigger). Part 3 picture stories love a castle, a cave, a swan, a rocket. Part 4 personal questions may ask about a journey, a hotel, or Have you ever been to a museum?

Do not dump the alphabetic list into revision. Drill confusable pairs, collocations (get to the airport, be made of wood), and the last half of the definition. That is what the papers mark.