Me on the Map (Dragonfly Books)

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It’s here, it’s done, and now available!! I’m so excited to offer you Me On the Map: An Early Elementary Social Studies Guide!

This can be with a colour marker that points directly to your home, or by highlighting your road in a different colour. You can see more of my work, including 'behind the scenes' and 'how maps are made' stories on my social channels. I copied the template onto blue paper and provided each student with a piece of blue construction paper, green construction paper and white drawing paper. I found it to be helpful to cut the drawing paper to fit the space and modeled how to draw the person with the hands at the top of the paper and the feet at the bottom. This was beneficial to the students as it provided spatial guidelines for them. The skills needed to read and interpret maps are a part of visual literacy, which is a set of skills and habits of mind necessary to “read” images. Further, visual literacy means not just decoding an image but comprehending it — grasping the image’s intended meaning, evaluating it, and incorporating it into other knowledge. 4. Builds SchemaThere are a lot of great books focused on the topic, but the one I feel is best for really helping children in grades K-5 to understand how various places relate to one another and to strengthen their visual and spatial skills is Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney.

Welcome to Me On The Map, makers of typographic maps of London and beyond – that can be personalised to highlight areas special to you. Field Trip Ideas: The first few units also include fun field trip ideas in your area that go along with the Explore section. Visiting great places near you is an amazing learning experience.Arrangement and Presentation: It is a very well-illustrated book which tells the story of how a girl learns about where she is located on a map. It lends itself to many possible projects and lessons. Discussion questions: These questions help begin a dialogue with your children and introduce the units topic. (These could also be used as great writing prompts for older children.) Maine occupies an area of 91,646 km² (35,385 sq mi) [ 2], compared it is about the size of Portugal. Compared in scale with other US states, it is the largest of the six New England states, but it would fit more than seven times into Texas. Validity: This is an older book, but still very valuable to teaching young children. It is a great supplement resource to more structured geographical Yet, all too often, I have found adults who are clueless when given a map- forget orienting it! Someone needs to make sure all children can read and orient maps before leaving grade school! Aren't they learning geography anymore??? This is the perfect book to start with. Nice, simple illustrations of maps that young children can easily understand. Large print is easy for younger readers to follow along with and read. Explanations of how maps work and how to create them is simple enough for very young children to understand.

Dive Deeper: If your child is really enjoying a unit or you have an older child joining you, this section has great ideas to dive deeper and learn even more. To be the first to find about new maps, offers and news - sign up to my mailing list (plus receive a discount code) Or you may prefer to have a map that simply shows your little bit of London. These you can personalise by colour.Book list: I have provided a great book list for each unit with suggestions for picture books and nonfiction books to read together.

Using this guide, children will have so much fun learning how a home is built, what the difference is between the country and city, the symbols of their state, the seven continents, and so much more! Work with maps and focusing on the concept of our place in the world will help students to increase their comprehension and make better connections to both fiction and non-fiction texts that reference different geographical locations. 2. Strengthens Spatial Thinking Leave a lot of time to complete this project. It will take longer than you think for everyone to finish – and that is ok! With the organizational tips above, it will be easy to do over a couple of days! I have my students keep their circles they have finished in their unfinished boxes and then take the papers they haven’t finished and put in their unfinished boxes as well, that way they don’t lose their spot. Conclusion This has got to be the best easy explanation of maps for young kids! I have used this books with preschoolers to explain how maps work and many older 4 year olds and 5 years olds "get it!" Good for K-4th grade to explain what maps are and how they work. I would think teaching orientation would be a good next step. I remember learning about maps in 2nd grade and being complete enthralled with them! Spatial thinking is one of the most important skills that students can develop as they learn geography and it is also linked to success in math and science. 3. Boosts Visual LiteracyThis lesson is best accompanied with the book Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney. The book follows a girl from her individual self and zooms out into her room, her house, her street, her state, her country, and her world – just like this project does! It is a great introduction to maps and how are different communities are connected. This project can be difficult for students to complete independently and correctly, unless teachers support their students in staying organized. 1. Use Different Colored Paper