Posted on 01/06/2022
Once you've helped your child learn some basic cartography skills and to identify land and water forms, you can begin to map your world starting with your own home. This doesn't have to be anything fancy, but if your child is artistic or tech-savvy, it can definitely take on your child's personal style. From watercolors to precisely measured charts, the aim is to represent your own neighborhood and the broader community in a way that reflects your child's own perspective.
Starting with Basics
In addition to any land and water forms, you'll want to introduce your child to basic compass points. You might want to consider purchasing an orienteering compass like this one. One way to help reinforce the way that the compass points relate to your home and neighborhood is to post a compass rose decoration or a map of some sort (with North facing up, as is typical) on a North wall if possible. You can also talk about where you see the sun in the morning versus what windows sunlight streams in during the evening.
Establishing a Scale
Depending on your child's age and interest, you can try to establish a scale for your map. You can do this by discovering measurements of your block in Google Maps, using the instructions given in this video. If you want to be able to show significant detail, perhaps of your flower beds or your neighbor's pool, you may want to use poster board or a roll of paper. Maybe you'll use a 1:100 scale in which a single foot represents every 100-foot segment. Whatever you choose, you'll want to be consistent. Perhaps you'll start with closer to a 1:1000 scale for an overview of your broader neighborhood and then move to an enlarged map of just your house and close neighbors. Again, this doesn't have to be on paper. Maybe you want to use cardboard or sidewalk chalk on the driveway.
Determining Land Marks
Once you create a neighborhood map, you may want to change the scale again and draw a miniature version of it, allowing room to "zoom out" further to include your town or city. Now, this isn't meant to be a generic map, so you want to highlight places that are important to your child and your family. Think of your child's school, favorite playground, best friend's house, favorite restaurants, grocery store, and anyplace else you visit regularly or which seems significant. You could use a toy car to travel from one place to another, noting which way to turn, using navigational terms. You could even create a bit of a scavenger hunt, giving your child directions and then asking where they would end up.
The goal of this activity is to connect map skills to everyday life and establish directional fluency in your local area. This may or may not be a skill they teach in school, but it is a life skill.
The Bedroom Source
Located near the Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island, The Bedroom Source is your source for the best collection of children's and teen bedroom furniture. From flexibly configurable Maxtrix furniture to fashionable American-made collections, The Bedroom Source offers high end furniture and professional design assistance to create the bedroom of your child's dreams.
Contact the friendly staff at The Bedroom Source by calling (516) 248-0600 or by submitting our online contact form. We're a local family owned mom & pop store. When you shop with us, you're dealing directly with the owners. We professionally assemble everything we sell. We deliver to Nassau, Suffolk, the 5 Boroughs, Southern Westchester, Southwestern Connecticut & Northern New Jersey.