"Maps"

by: Sandy Davis

Grade Level: 3-6

Focus: Geographic awareness and map reading skills

Objectives: Students will -   

• Understand how maps are created and the purpose of maps 

• Draw a map of an actual place using proper topography, direction and scale. 

• Learn the concept of distance  

• Measure distances between cities on a map 

State Standards:  

• A.4.2 Locate on a map or globe physical features such as continents, oceans, mountain ranges, and land forms, natural features such as resources, flora, and fauna; and human features such as cities, states, and national borders

•  A.4.7 Identify connections between the local community and other places in Wisconsin, the United States, and the world

Intelligence and Activity:

Spatial – Student should draw a map of their room or house and name and explain the items in their room/house. Make sure it has a key to explain the map and label it with north, south, east and west. Students can also make a topographical map of Wisconsin or a world map on a round pizza tray with paper mache or some other mixture in which they can make to demonstrate mountains, deserts, rivers, etc. Then they can paint them when they are dry to demonstrate these features on a topographical map.  

Linguistic – Give an oral presentation of their room map explaining it to the class and/or a written report of the topographical map explaining boundaries.  

Logical/Mathematical – Design a scale of inches for your map and learn how to read and measure other maps such as Wisconsin road maps. Give the students a worksheet of cities to find how many miles they would be from Stevens Point.  

Bodily/Kinesthetic – Draw a map giving directions to find something in another part of the building and have your partner locate the destination you had in mind. They should be specific on approximate feet to go and left, right, etc.

Musical – Teach the students the song “Places in the World” by Red and Kathy Grammer. Play the tape a few times and place words on an overhead to sing together pointing them out as they are sung. It is a very fast song with difficult cities. Then give them their own sheets with the words on them to sing together when they are more comfortable with the songs.  

Interpersonal – Let the students choose a group of 4 or 5 students to be in a group to discover where the places are from in the song, “Places in the World”. Give them each 2 globes and large flat world maps and a sheet that labels all the places in the world for them to find. Give them 3 days in class to find all they can together. They have to label their sheets with the name of the continent by the city they find.  

Intrapersonal – Since all of the “Places in the World” are not on the maps and globes, they can work at home or in the computer lab on their own to find the remaining cities not on the maps. Discuss the result.  

Naturalistic – Go outside in the woods with a treasure map to find a treasure that you have planted and come up with. Could be a treasure box of treats. They can do this in groups from different starting points but comparable difficulties. Include north, south, east, west. Step off so many feet, use landmarks, etc. Or you could do a scavenger hunt with directions and similar to the treasure hunt.