Maps- Dr. Seuss, 3D models and more

We have come to a unit that I absolutely love teaching, maps and geography! When we introduced maps it happened to be during Dr. Seuss week- cue in There's A Map in My Lap!  This book was a great introduction to maps and their many uses.  Some of the information was little bit over my students' heads (latitude and longitude for instance.)  For the most part those, the book was a great way to kick off learning about maps.

The students did an at home project and each created a different 3d building out of a box.  I used poster board to create parks and streets.  The students made the trees.

The students also created a follow the directions game for their classmates.  In this game students were given a blank zoo map from the The Mailbox Magazine.  They chose 4 places they would like to go on the map and numbered those places 1-4.  The students then wrote a paragraph about where they went on their zoo trip.  First, I went to see the lions, next I went to see the bears.  Students then put the map into an envelope, glued their paragraph to the front and students worked in pairs to read about different students' zoo trips.  The student pairs we given a laminated map and a dry erase marker to write the numbers on the map as they read the directions.  Once they marked all 4 locations, the students took out the map from the envelope to check their work.

I hope you got some new ideas on working with maps!  Enjoy!