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Where did Marco Polo travel to?

October 21, 2016 Ticia 4 Comments

You canโ€™t talk about Marco Polo and his trip to China, without getting out a few maps.  It was also a great chance for the kids to see how the maps connected together and put some geography into this homeschool history, because prior to this our other map lessons had been pretty much on one map.  Now we were crossing continents from Europe to Asia.

Marco Polo map lesson

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Supplies needed for Marco Polo mapwork

Marco Polo map lesson for elementary

big wall maps (find out how to make a wall map), overhead markers* (if your map is laminated like mine, if not pencils*), Wondermaps*

 

Marco Polo travels to China mapwork

Marco Polo map lesson

First we grabbed our map of Europe and found Italy.  Then we labeled our key city of Venice, which at this point is the center of all trade.

Then we headed over to our Asia map and started labeling all of the important places there, while referring to our printout of his actual journeys.

beginning of Marco Polo map lesson

Marco Polo started out traveling by boat.  This was probably the easiest part of his journey (though it made for a hilarious writing prompt from my kids as one went into insane detail about being seasick).

Marco Polo map lesson where Genghis Kahn conquered
It’s dark and foreboding because the times were foreboding…. Bwa ha ha ha, sometimes I just make myself laugh

Then before we looked at where Marco Polo took his journey, we looked at what was going on in China.  Specifically who was in charge in China.  Genghis Kublai Kahn (I had that wrong at first, thanks for letting me know I put the wrong name down).  We looked at our Wonder Map and saw all of the places the Mongols had conquered and put a red checkmark next to their names.  It was turning into quite a big area.  At some point, the kids and I will do a more in-depth lesson on Genghis Kahn, but that got us a nice start.

Marco Polo map lesson journey through Asia

Then we marked his route through Pakistan, India, and Nepal.  We talked about how Marco Polo had to cross some pretty impressive landscape to get to Peking.  He had to cross dessert, jungle, and mountains.  That must have been a tiring trek.

 

We used this lesson for part of our inspiration for our Marco Polo writing prompts.

 

history Age of Exploration, Asia, Europe, Mystery of History 2

Comments

  1. Natalie PlanetSmartyPants says

    October 22, 2016 at 10:49 am

    For some reason I thought that he traveled on land. I learned something new today from your blog… again.

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      October 22, 2016 at 7:36 pm

      Well, once he got to the Middle East he did. ๐Ÿ™‚ The Byzantine Empire was in its death throes at this time, so it was not a safe place to travel at that time.

  2. Hannah says

    December 7, 2020 at 8:26 am

    I believe the ruling kahn at the time of Polo’s travels was actually Kublai, Genghis’ grandson. Interestingly, both Genghis and Kublai came to power at 13-years-old. Apparently the apple doesn’t fall far from the Mongol tree? ๐Ÿ™‚

    Thank you for this specific mapping suggestion! I’ve been hunting ways to supplement our own study of Marco Polo’s journey, and mapping hasn’t been our strong suit, particularly when former names are used.

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      December 7, 2020 at 4:28 pm

      You’re right! I totally put in the wrong name. That’s what happens when you’re writing without double-checking your notes.

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Ticia Adventures in Mommydom Hi, I'm Ticia! This is the adventures of my family in life and learning. Follow along with us as we share our adventures. We're having a lot of fun and learning as we go.

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