Lesson 2: What Is a Map?
Getting Started
Questions to Explore
- What makes an environment safe and healthy?
- What do homes provide for the people who live in them?
Facts and Definitions
- A map is a picture that shows where places in the environment are located and how to find them.
Skills
- Locate and describe familiar places in the home and other environments (such as bodies of water and landforms) (SS)
- Create and interpret simple maps and drawings of the home and other environments (SS)
- Model and use directional and positional vocabulary (M)
- Complete simple spatial visualization tasks and puzzles (M)
- Write and sound out letters (LA)
Materials
- Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney
- a variety of maps
- blank paper
- colored pencils or markers* (Activity 3 - Option 2)
- glue* (Activity 3 - Option 1)
- scissors* (Activity 3 - Option 1)
- U.S. and world maps* (Activity 1 - optional)
* - denotes an optional material that may or may not be needed
Introduction
Materials: a variety of maps
Ask your child if he has ever seen a map and if he knows why we look at maps and how we use them. Show your child a few examples of maps in books, atlases, travel brochures, or online. Point out important landforms, streets, and bodies of water on the maps. Explain to your child that a map is a type of picture that shows the important places or objects in an environment and that a map is drawn as if we are looking down on a place. Explain that maps are small drawings of real places in the world.