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Step 1
Gather your materials. You will need maps, an atlas, a globe, graph paper, plain paper, pens, crayons and markers, and a ruler and measuring tape. A roll of newsprint paper is also useful.
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Step 2
Get maps from travel agencies, foreign embassies, state police or other governmental offices, and National Geographic magazines. Local maps can be obtained from the chamber of commerce and real estate offices.
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Step 3
Let the children see you use maps regularly in your other lessons or work. If, in science, the lesson is about panda bears, go to the globe and show where these animals can be found. Similarly, if you are studying Roman numbers or talking about Arabic numerals, go to the globe and show where these concepts were invented. Appreciating the usefulness of maps and globes will encourage the children to learn.
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Step 4
Use maps when discussing school field trips, the children’s or your own commute to school, the location of the school, town and state.
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Step 5
Begin formal lessons on map reading after the groundwork has been laid as above.
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Step 1
Teach the concept of location. With young children, this begins with memorizing their address. Use a map to show where there house is, where the school is, the town, state, and country.
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Step 2
Place signs on the walls of the classroom showing the compass directions and use the terms whenever possible in other lessons (e.g., “The president lives in the White House in Washington DC, which is on the EAST coast of the United States.”).
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Step 3
Have the children make a scale map of the classroom on graph paper. Teach and use symbols to stand for the various objects in the classroom. Relate scale to other maps you have. A fun way of illustrating scale change is to draw something on a partially inflated balloon, and then blow it up more. The children should see that all parts of the drawing grew larger.
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Step 4
Have the children place symbols on a map of the local community showing the post office, banks, grocery stores, churches, parks and other places the children will recognize. Once they understand the concept of symbols representing places, introduce symbols for geographic features, such as mountains, lakes, rivers. Have them compare the various symbols used by different map makers.
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Step 5
Assign the children homework to find and mark on a map, several locations alluded to in the books they read or programs they watched at home. They can tell briefly what places they found and why. This will often excite the other children by the variety of places and connections to maps. The children will compete to see who can come up with the strangest places or the most obscure allusion. One child might find a place mentioned in a song he heard on “American Idol,” someone else will show where the top fashion designers work.
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Step 6
Play lots of geography and map games. A simple game is to have the children compete to see who can find a given city or feature on a map or globe. Involve the children more by letting them call out the places to be found. Give each child an outline map of the United States and have him color in each state he can find a connection to in the classroom (for instance, one child was born in Michigan, the red-eared slider turtles in the terrarium came from Florida, there is a copy of the Declaration of Independence on the wall and it was signed in Pennsylvania, and so on).
Comments
amylaine said
on 11/10/2008 Great advice, thanks for sharing. 5 stars.