Fun ways to use maps with your kids

I always loved looking at maps, I think it started when I read the Wizard of Oz books and they had that awesome map of Oz in the front with all of those fun little details.  I would pore over that map trying to figure out where different areas we’d read about were, and what parts we still hadn’t visited. Now as a homeschool mom I try to make our geography lessons fun and our maps interactive.

But, I hated having to create perfect maps.  You know where everything was colored right in the lines, and there were no mistakes.  I had quite a few papers marked down because of coloring mistakes and things missing.

Using maps to show the location

This is the glaringly obvious lesson for maps, and helpful for any of the rest of the lessons to have much relevance.  Maps are easy to find online if you do a search, but if you’re lazy or want to always have easy access to them you can get a program like Wonder Maps {affiliate link} and never have to search for it.  To truly get a finger on where something is try different projections, especially because different maps portray different things.

Thanks to Our Life’s Adventures I found this great clip explaining how maps can affect your viewpoint:

A great example of using maps to show location: Arctic Maps by All Things Beautiful or How to use picture books to teach maps

 

Using maps as a jumping-off point for your state or country study

Maps can give you the start of a great country or state study.  You could do the overly simplified throw a dart at the map and study that country, or you can follow a theme or a road for your studies.  Or look at what’s in the map, how did the geography of the area affect it?  At some point, I need to write about how the geography of New Orleans changed the city so much.  It’s a really fascinating lesson, okay it was fascinating to me.

Great example here: How to make a 50 state study

Use maps to show resources of the area

One of the maps kids love to look at is resource maps, especially pictorial ones.  A few years ago we picked up a pictorial map from Ikea.  Each map shows different resources available in this world and where we might find them for different continents.  We’ll spend a very long time looking at where different animals are found, or what kinds of food are grown in different areas.  This can be a great way to tie in inter-disciplinary studies.  Last year as we studied land animals we had the opportunity to put stickers of the animals where they could be found in the world.

Great example of showing resources: Make an edible map of the area

Use maps as an art lesson

For years maps have been hung on our walls and admired as great works of art, and if you go to pinterest you can easily find a dozen or so pins with maps altered, cut up, painted on, and generally made into a “statement piece” to hang on your walls.  But, they can also be made into a great art lesson in techniques.  You can show your kids different styles and how they were made, and the purpose behind them.  I’m slowly doing this with my kids, and they are slowly adding more details to their work.

A great example of a map as art work: Japan Map

Use maps to show topography

Who else had to make a salt dough map to show their knowledge of landforms in middle school?  I did, and I both loved and hated the project.  I loved it because I got to create this cool artwork, but I hated it because it took lots of time and many steps to get it done.  It didn’t fit with my usual style of making it all the night before.  You can show topography with a flat paper map, by drawing elevation and talking about how the lines change the way you perceive a map, and of course, there’s the fun of building huge 3D maps.  I’m also a fan of the 3D paper maps, again for not waiting for the dough or the paper mache to dry.

A great example of a topography map (and I love that it’s clay): 3D Clay Map

Some resources I’ve enjoyed for using maps in different ways {affiliate links}:

• Interactive 3-D Maps: American History
• Kingfisher First Picture Atlas
• Melissa And Doug USA Map Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle*
• Melissa & Doug World Map Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle
• Learning Resources Inflatable 12-Inch Globe

*I like wooden puzzles for their durability