Group Maps!

Have you ever had one of those days, where your lesson plans fail majorly and then you wing it and end up with something crazier and way better then you ever imagined!!!?

I both LOVE and HATE when that happens.

These past few weeks, my students have been studying Maps in Social Studies. Now each year, I like to mix up my activities and projects just a little, so as to keep my instruction fun and to meet the needs of the current class I have. But at the same time I don't recreate the wheel, I DO of course stick to some of those trusty lessons that always work. 

Unfortunately this past week, one of my trusty lessons didn't work as well as I expected it to. My students blew through the material and I suddenly had 27 pairs of eyes staring at me with over 45 minutes of now what next!? 

Since we were studying the characteristics and parts of a Map, I thought ok well they can create maps in groups for the next 45 minutes. I gave them paper and modeled how to draw roads, symbols, a map key, a map scale and a compass. My intention was for them to finish up within those 45 minutes but they LOVED it. 

They took it to a whole new level and designed towns with themes. They planned out what they wanted in their towns and discussed whether or not it was ok to have more than one ice cream store or football stadium. They took out rulers and analyzed how long they would want to drive to get from one location on their map to another to help determine their map scale. I even overheard one group discussing where to put their own house on the map, finally determining that it should be on the north side of the map because its closer for Santa to reach at Christmas. It was incredible thinking skills!

A 45 minute map activity, turned into a 3 day project, one where they were digging into the material and thinking more critically than I had ever intended. We even added that Tech Twist by presenting our projects through the use of one of my favorite apps, "Shadow puppet!" You can see two of their presentations below. 

I loved that this group added me to their map! 

They worked so hard and I was so proud of their finished projects!

Obviously I'm going to keep planning out my lessons. I'm way too OCD to wing it everyday but its definitely nice to remind myself that sometimes a great lesson can come from a last minute thought! :) 

Me on the Map

Hey everyone! Check out these amazing Me on the Map projects that my students created during their unit on maps. Me on the Map is an amazing children's book written by Joan Sweeney. It helps kids determine the difference between house, neighborhood, city, state, country, continent and planet by breaking it down slowly through the use of maps! A lot of teachers use this book to hit different geography and literacy standards. Students learn all about their place in this world and then recreate Joan Sweeney's book for where they live. My own students spent a whole week, working on this project. They loved it though. 

There are so many different ways of doing this project and so many templates out on the web. Some of the best templates can be found at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/. I edited the wonderful template here for our own state, and then used the adorable cover I found here. I love Teachers pay Teachers! Both these templates were free! 

BBK the Primary Way

Why are Maps Important? How do they help us in every day life?  And what can they tell us about the world around us?

Just recently my second graders finished learning about Maps. We spent 9 weeks looking at how maps are read, how they are used, their key components, whether or not they are effective, and how to correctly identify different types. We also looked at the breakdown of the world and how countries, continents, states and cities are all different from each other. One of my students told me she had no idea that maps were so interesting! :) 

If you look below, you can see one of the many anchor charts we used to map out our thinking. We created a classroom brain... we learned all about what it means to have a schema and to build upon such schema. We started by putting all of our initial knowledge about maps inside the picture of the brain. Then we spent a week, reading about maps and creating a list of things that we wanted to learn about them. The anchor chart was a great visual way of showing my kids what they were learning and how all this new information was building upon their original knowledge. 

My students completed their own simple BBK graphic organizer, as well. They filled in two things they had known about maps prior to learning on the inside of the head and then added two things they learned on the outside. It was such an awesome assessment.

I can't wait to use it on our next topic!!!

Download the organizer here for free.