1.5 OVERVIEW

The student will construct a simple map of a familiar area, using basic map symbols in the map legend.

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

• Read a trade book or other related material that discusses beginning mapping skills or focuses on location as related to a house or room within a house.
• Begin to discuss how drawings are used to help show locations of objects or can be used to display how things or objects are related or how they appear.
• Invite each student to think of his or her own bedroom and explore how to make an accurate drawing of it to share with others. Explain bird’s eye view as a perspective of looking down on something from above. Brainstorm how things would appear from this view.
• Ask questions to trigger awareness of what things would be seen in the drawing of their room. Is it big or little? Does it have windows? How many doors are in the room? Does it have a rug? How much room does the bed take up?
• Model the activity by drawing a bird’s eye view picture of a room.
• Explain that all maps include certain elements (such as the compass rose, symbols, and a legend).
• Introduce the term symbols. Brainstorm known symbols and what they represent(red light=stop, green light=go, etc.).
• Explain to students that a map is a small picture of a larger place. We must use symbols to represent larger features found on a map or use symbols to replace words. Use examples of different maps to identify and discuss what features can be represented by symbols (land, water, cities, and roads, for example).
• Brainstorm different things that can be shown on a map. Create a class chart to include such things as: schools, hospitals, parks, lakes, airports, bus stops, roads, rivers, etc. Use index cards to create “symbols” of these locations. Students should write the word on one side and draw a simple picture on the back as a symbol.
• Share and compare symbol cards as a class.
• With partners, have students play a guessing game with their symbol cards. One student will hold up his or her symbol drawing and the other will identify what the symbol represents.
• Explain to students that maps with symbols must have a legend to explain what the symbols represent.
• Divide students into groups. Each group will have a map. They will locate the legend on the map. As a class, identify and discuss similar symbols found on their map’s legend.
• Practice locating different objects or places on various maps using the legend.
• Combine several student symbol cards, created in the previous lesson, to create a map legend.
• Read selected books about simple maps and globes.
• Post the cardinal directions of north, east, south, and west in the classroom.
• Construct simple maps using basic map symbols.
• Create a map of the classroom using symbols as explained in the map legend.
• Create a map of the playground using symbols as explained in the map legend.
• Create a map of the school using symbols as explained in the map legend.

WEB SITES

http://pr.tennessee.edu/ut2kids/maps/maps.html
This link provides information for teachers and students about mapmaking, including a brief biography of a real cartographer.

http://nationalgeographic.com/
National Geographic provides information and copies of various maps.

http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/omc_intro.html
This interactive site will create a map when you provide specific and rather in-depth information. This is an advanced knowledge site that the teacher may enjoy exploring and using as a reference.

http://interactive2.usgs.gov/learningweb/teachers/mapadv.htm
U.S. Geological Survey Learning Web provides a full lesson/unit plan for teaching early elementary students beginning map concepts and skills.

LITERATURE LINKS

Map Skills: constructing a simple map of a familiar area using basic symbols in the map legend

Trapani, Iza.
Oh Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?. No city: Charlesbridge Publishing, 1998.
An extended version of the nursery rhyme where a little dog runs away and explores a variety of landforms before coming home is shared in this book.

Sweeney, Joan.
Me on the Map. Dragonfly Books, 1998.
A child describes how her room, house, town, state, and country become part of a map of her world.