Atlas Globetrotting

Teaching Pre K-8, Feb 2005 by Drasek, Lisa Von

Atlas Globetrotting

You don't need an expensive plane ticket to see the world the right atlases and maps will do the trick

One of the essential features of our early childhood social studies program is geography. Working with young children we observe that they are developmentally capable of moving objects in space and figuring out where things go using beginning mapping skills.

Finding their way

First graders doing a neighborhood study visit local shops and then map out the buildings using blocks. Our first graders culminate their first year by building a crate city. These are wooden wine crates that they outfit with all the accouterments of each business and service that they have been studying all year. As we wander the miniature streets, we recognize the bagel store, the library, the firehouse and the bookstore.

Anyone wandering into our second grade classrooms will enjoy a three dimensional map of the Hudson River or in some years, a table-sized model of Central Park created in papier-mâché, sand, rock, tissue paper and paint. Our third graders have the opportunity to study and map New Amsterdam as our fourth graders are examining the flora and fauna of the Arctic Circle.

Mapping it out!

Let's take a look at Mapmaking for Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years by David Sobel (Heinemann, 1998, ISBN: 0-325-00042-5). Sobel examines the uses of mapmaking across the curriculum from social studies to literature to math and art. One of the activities Sobel suggests is to make maps of imaginary places.

One of my favorite books to support this type of project is now redesigned and back in print - The Once Upon A Time Map Book, by B.C. Hennessy, illustrated by Peter Joyce (Candlewick, 2004, ISBN: 0-763-62521-3). The premise is that Prince Charming and Cinderella travel to six fairy tale lands including Neverland, Wonderland and Oz. Students can make their own imaginary land maps using white paper and markers or a wall-sized mural of brown paper and tempera.

Award winning author and illustrator Peter Sis has created an impressive compendium entitled The Train of States (Greenwillow, 2004, 0-060-57838-6). He writes that this labor of love was created by combining information about his adopted country, the United States, with his admiration for antique circus wagons. The book is structured in the order of when a state joined the union - we begin with Delaware. The wagon displays state facts including the state bird - the blue hen for Delaware and Delaware's insect, the ladybug. Each wagon is crammed with facts and symbols; often we note a famous native son or daughter such as Ben Franklin for Pennsylvania or Louisa May Alcott for Massachusetts. There are also reproductions of state flags. This is a terrific springboard to state studies.

Map learning

Children can also create maps of the places they travel to in books. In response to their reading of Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick, 2001, ISBN: 0-763-61605-2) we made maps of of India Opal Baloni's small Florida town. I am delighted to note that in the movie version, Opal creates a map herself as she gets to know the people and places of her new home.

The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and the National Institute on Early Childhood Development have produced a valuable new website entitled Early Childhood: Where Learning Begins Geography, www.ed.gov/pubs/Geography/intro duction.html

The website, which can also be printed as a pamphlet, provides activities structured around themes developed by professional geographers. The creators of this work, Carol Sue Fromboluti and Carol seefeldt state "Geography is a way of thinking, of asking questions and of observing and appreciating the world around us."

A look at the world

It's essential for schools to have updated materials. I'm saddened when I volunteer in a school and the only world maps in the school still label Russia as the Soviet Union.

In examining atlases we are looking for accuracy, ease of use and depth of material. Here are the finest of the most recent crop. For teachers looking for affordable classroom sets I like The World Almanac Atlas of the World (World Almanac, 2004, ISBN: 0-843-71926-5). It is appropriate for grades 4-7 and is available at a discount in class sets with an additional hardcover copy and a set of Map Skills Blackline Masters. This edition includes a representation of the world globe on each spread to make locating a country easier. Each continent is displayed first, then the countries within. A separate section includes individual states so that an additional atlas is not needed.

National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers (National Geographic, 2003, ISBN: 0-792-22879-0) is oversized with rich ink laid on 115 glossy pages. Appropriate for children eight to twelve, this volume begins with a terrific introduction.

The "How To Use This Atlas" section contains handy tips like locator globes to orient yourself when looking at a planetary map. There is a clear explanation on how to use the index by finding a place on the maps. The corners of each page are color coded by continent for easy browsing. Each map contains a bar scale to show how distance on paper corresponds with actual distance.