Mapmaking 1.2: PreK/K & Lower Elementary

 Hi everyone,

The two classes did different things today. If you’ve got a PREK/K student, read the first section; if you’ve got an LE student, read the second section.

For the Prek/K group, we continued to talk about SEQUENCE and ORDER when mapmaking. The example I gave was giving directions to the zoo camels from the parking lot. You have to go past the reptile house, the monkey house, and the lions, in that exact order, or you won’t make it to the camels. We then read a Dora the Explorer book about finding ingredients for a cake using Map. I pointed out that Dora had to find the ingredients in order, or she wouldn’t get all of her ingredients. After this, we used markers and a large plastic tablecloth to make a class map of our routes from home to co-op. This is what the 3-5 landmarks were for. The kids overall did a nice job of drawing their house and landmarks in sequence, and hopefully the importance of correct sequencing came through. 

We then read the book “As the Crow Flies,” which tracks several different animals through their habitats, and then shows a map for each animal. It’s a fantastic book! Then everyone got a piece of paper and chose an animal. The task was to make a map of the animal’s habitat, which should include: where the animal sleeps, where it gets food, and where it plays. Any child who wanted to present his/her map was able to show the rest of the class and talk about it. It was a little bit chaotic, but I think the activities worked.

The LE class started off in the parking lot. Everyone raised their right hand and pointed straight out to their right side. And everyone described what they were pointing at. This illustrated that “right” and “left” are relative, and aren’t great as directional words because your orientation can change what’s on your right and what’s on your left. In comes the far superior CARDINAL DIRECTIONS, which never change, no matter a person’s orientation. I showed them a compass rose on my church parking lot map, which tells you how to orient the map. Everyone got to hold a little compass and learn how to read it (the arrow above the N always points north). We practiced identifying what direction we were facing by reading the compass. 

I made a big 8x8 grid on the parking lot with chalk. Each square was big enough to stand in, and had a number from 1-64. The kids each got a sheet of paper with instructions: a starting number, then five cardinal direction/step combos. For example, a kid might start on #5, then have instructions to go South 6 steps, and write the number of that square on their paper. If they followed all of the directions (and thus got the correct square numbers) they got to pick a piece of candy. If they didn’t get them correct, they got to try again with help. Everyone got to pick some (individually wrapped) candy!

From there we went inside to practice drawing a map that’s oriented correctly AND uses correct relative distances. Everyone got a piece of 1/2 inch graph paper. I showed them now to “measure” the room by counting the number of steps it took to go from wall to wall. It took me eight steps for both length and width of the room so I made an 8x8 square room on my graph paper. The kids do this with their own step counts. Then they used steps to measure the distance from the wall to the different pieces of furniture; and steps to measure the lengths of the pieces of furniture etc. and drew them on the correct places on the grid paper, with correct relative lengths. Everyone completed this successfully! 

Finally, the LE kids made their class map on a large piece of plastic tablecloth (with co-op in the middle). Everyone drew their house and three landmarks, and connected their route with “road making makers.” Overall, I think everyone found some part of the class they enjoyed (besides eating a piece of candy). We barely got it all done! Thank you Joy, for all of your help!  See you next week!

-Sarah