3 replies to this topic

[Gretchen Peterson]

I went to my daughter's first grade open-house the other night and was thrilled to see a map of Australia up on their wall. They were doing a unit on Australia so the teacher drew a map of the country on parchment paper - about 5' by 5' in size - and tacked it to the wall. It was basically just the outline in black marker.

Every day they "drove" around the country in a "car" that the teacher had drawn on cardboard and had some sort of sticky material on it. As they "drove" she would put up postcards and pictures and other things that someone had collected and she'd talk about it.

So my daughter pointed to a postcard of the Sydney Opera House and told me that was where they have music, for example. They made it all the way around the country and obviously learned a lot, judging from the other stories kids were telling to their parents and the relative popularity of this particular exercise. It really made the process of learning about maps, geography, and the history of another country a whole lot more visual and exciting for them.

[MapMedia]

cool. The teacher should get a Cartotalk cupcake for teaching geography in a fun and engaging way

[DaveB]

cool. The teacher should get a Cartotalk cupcake for teaching geography in a fun and engaging way

I second that! (there are cartotalk cupcakes? )

[Matthew Hampton]

That's a great idea – the teachers and the cupcakes!

It reminds me a book my daughters recently got me for my birthday called "How I Learned Geography" by Uri Shulevitz. I give it two thumbs up!

If you have kids or just like kids books I recommend it.