I recently posted a picture of our map work on my instagram feed and there were quite a few questions in regards to how we do cartography in our homeschool. This blog has been patiently waiting for its first post and because of the interest on my instagram picture, I was inspired to write up a quick post and hopefully inspire some of you to try mapmaking with your children.
When we first started cartography, I would print out a map and they would trace it onto another piece of paper. When that method seemed to have run its course, we started drawing one state at a time, eventually being able to draw a complete map of the United States. Now, there is nothing wrong with either of these ways, but it just wasn’t working for us. They were bored and becoming increasingly uninterested in maps and mapmaking. About this time, I started looking for books about maps, hoping to turn this around. In my search, I came across, Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years by David Sobel. If you are wanting to implement cartography into your children’s studies, I can’t recommend this book enough. It challenged me to turn our rote memorization of maps into an art process.A few people asked at what age do you start? My children in these photos are 10, 9 and 6, but I could have and wished I would have started this sooner. Maps don’t have to be overly complicated. For the map featured in this post, I read a passage to my children from, A Land Remembered. It talked in great detail about the route Tobias and Zach MacIvey took on their cattle drive to the Great Cypress Swamp in The Everglades. Next, we located some key points on a map of Florida and then the map was theirs for the making. As you can see, they each interpreted the passage differently. Accuracy was not the goal here, though I’m sure that will come with time.
I’ve included a list of the books we have read or are currently reading in our mapping studies. Some of these are out of print, but well worth hunting them down!
Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor by Robert Burleigh
They Put Out To Sea by Roger Duvoisin
Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years by David Sobel
Map Art Lab by Jill K. Berry and Linden McNeilly
What’s in a Map? by Sally Cartwright
The Magic Map by Mary Graham Bonner
As the Crow Flies: A First Book of Maps by Gail Hartman
All About Maps and Mapmaking by Susan Marsh
Henry’s Map by David Elliot
The Once Upon a Time Map Book: Take a Tour of Six Enchanted Lands by B.G. Hennessey