Map Skills with Mapping Penny's World

Welcome to the March edition of Poppins Book Nook! 

This is my first month participating and I am enjoying it immensely. This month's theme was: Where in the World? At first I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to focus on, but as I got to thinking about it I realized this would be a great opportunity to focus on some map skills. In fact, I was surrounded by geography this month, both at home and at our homeschool co-op where I was teaching the K-3rd graders some Global Art and having fun with geography. Our very helpful librarian found a couple of great books that we used this month. 

Our main book is Mapping Penny's World by Loreen Leedy. Penny is Lisa's dog and we first meet Lisa as she tells us about learning to make maps in school. She decides to make a map of her room with Penny's help. She then makes a map of her yard showing all of the places Penny hides things she finds. This leads to making a map to show the route a neighbor dog would take to come to visit Penny and a map of their hiking and biking trails.  She also makes a 3-D map of Penny's Favorite Places. The books ends with a map of a planned trip around the world.

I decided to follow the same sort of pattern with the girls so we could see how we live in one tiny area of this great big world God created. We started by making a map of their bedroom.

Heading up the stairs.

They helped me measure the room and the furniture. We did not make the room exactly to scale, but we did try to estimate

Then on another day we branched out a bit and made a map of our house. We only did the downstairs. We started by taking a walk around the outside of the house to see how the different walls were arranged. The girls figured out quite easily which room we were standing outside of. I marked where doors, windows and porches were.

Then we walked around inside to mark were walls would go, filling in counters, appliances and furniture.

I then created 2 more outline maps and had the older two girls fill them in.

A few years ago I had made a map of our town. It isn't all that hard seeing as our town is only 1 mile around with hardly any side streets. 

The girls took a short walk with daddy, taking pictures of some landmarks that have changed in the last few years.

We used to have a thrift shop right next door to us and then a small gas station was next to that. The thrift shop was torn down a couple of years ago for the gas station to expand.

It is now less than a quarter of a mile away in an old store.

The next day the weather was warmer, so the children and I walked all the way around town, filling in a map as we went.

I made both Tabitha and Amelia an outline map of our town. Amelia wasn't as interested in filling in all the houses, but I am going to have her fill in road names and some of the landmarks that are on my original map. 

While we didn't give our maps all the features that were mentioned in the book, such as a scale, key or symbols, we did try to make the buildings stand out. Houses are just squares or rectangles, but garages have little cars drawn in them and the churches have pointed roofs and crosses for example. 

Then we expanded our world further using maps I printed from the internet. The girls colored in our county, state, country and our planet.

This is Tabitha's book. Amelia hasn't quite finished hers as she wasn't really into it as much. I think this project was just right for Tabitha, but I would tweak it for younger children.

We also learned some fun map making pointers from 

Math Monsters- Making Maps: Where's the Party by John Burstein.

I also read some of this book:

Geography for Fun: People and Places by Pam Robson. There are some great geography projects that I would like to work on in the future.

Come and check out what the other Poppins Book Nook co-hosts have been up to this month. Then don't forget to link up your own posts! Lastly, enter the giveaway below for a copy of Where in the World?

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy ~ Faith and Good Works ~ Learning and Growing the Piwi Way ~ The Usual Mayhem~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Monsters Ed Homeschool Academy ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ Kathy's Cluttered Mind ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Our Crafts N Things ~ Hopkins Homeschool ~ ABC Creative Learning ~ Joy Focused Learning ~ P is for Preschooler ~ Laugh and Learn ~ A Mommy's Adventures ~ Inspiring 2 New Hampshire Children ~ World for Learning ~ The Kennedy Adventures ~ Ever After in the Woods ~ Golden Grasses ~ Our Simple Kinda Life ~ A glimpse of our life ~ Journey to Excellence ~ Happy Little Homemaker ~ Little Homeschool Blessings ~ Simplicity Breeds Happiness ~ Raventhreads ~ Water on the Floor ~ Learning Fundamentals ~ Tots and Me ~ As We Walk Along The Road ~ Stir the Wonder ~ For This Season ~ Where Imagination Grows ~ Lextin Academy ~ The Canadian Homeschooler ~ School Time Snippets ~ Peakle Pie ~ Mom's Heart ~ A Moment in our World ~ Every Bed of Roses ~ Finchnwren ~ At Home Where Life Happens ~ Suncoast Momma ~ The Library Adventure ~ Embracing Destiny ~ Day by Day in our World ~ Our Homeschool Studio ~ A "Peace" of Mind ~ Thou Shall Not Whine ~ SAHM I am ~ eLeMeNo-P Kids ~ Simple Living Mama

Poppins Book Nook Giveaway! Every month the Poppins Book Nook group will be offering readers a chance to win a brand new storybook that ties in with our theme for the month. This month one lucky entrant will win a copy of Where in the World! The winner must reside within the United States. This giveaway is brought to you by the company Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, who is owner and founder of the Poppins Book Nook. By entering this giveaway you are also acknowledging that you have read and agree to all of the Rafflecopter terms & conditions as well as Enchanted Homeschooling Mom's disclosures found here.

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Come and find out more information about Poppins Book Nook at Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, on Facebook and on Pinterest.

Clip Art by Melon Headz