Make a Map

An example of my son mapping his room. When doinng mapping activities we often work from the most local space to the child outward.

Materials:

Nature Journal, drawing utensils of choice, a ruler and measuring tape

Activity:

Map your backyard, favorite trail, or nature area. Noting landmarks of special interest, where they discovered fun nature finds, or favorite places to be in the area.

Younger: 

Allow a loose interpretation of this project for younger children. Perhaps point out a tree or fence for them to add to their drawing if they don’t know where to get started.

Older:

Have older children measure their space and draw it to scale or add more details, taking more time on their maps. See if you or a sibling can follow their map when they are done.

Take it Further:

Do a mini-lesson on maps. Mapmaking, reading, cardinal directions. You can really do a whole unit on this subject, but it is a fun way to look at nature from a different perspective and even the most analytical and mathematical can get behind this version of nature journaling.

A Note to Parents/Teachers:

When making maps you will want to work from the most local area to the child outward. It will start as a simple drawing of their house with maybe a tree from their front yard and evolve over time to their backyard, neighborhood, and town. They will start with 1D shapes then move towards 2D shapes and change perspective from a front view to a birds-eye view with time. There is a natural evolution to map-making and spatial perception. To learn the level your child is at, invite them to draw a map of their backyard. If they ask for graph paper or try to get the spacing between objects measured they may be ready for more challenging perspectives or larger areas to map. If they draw a basic tree shape and fence then it is still a “map” it’s just their way of visually representing that space.

A book I would recommend to learn more about teaching map making with children is called “Mapmaking with Children” and it will guide you through level appropriate activities to help develop map-making and spatial reasoning skills with your kids. (We use a lot of graph paper at my house since my oldest likes to be very exact in his drawings so I buy it in bulk at Amazon)

Making your own Nature Journal:

You can use a regular entry for this activity or you can glue in a piece of graph paper and make your map on that.