We have been working on left, right, and opposite hand / foot combinations. We have been giving directions including on the left side or turn right to get to an object. So learning a little bit about maps seemed like a logical direction to go. (No pun intended.) We had a brief discussion that on a map it is important to indicate which direction is north to help us get our bearings (knowing which direction to go). One of the students mentioned that on a pirate map they saw an arrow with a N on it.
Both of the students have played with doll houses that have the back
wall of the house missing so they can play with the dolls and furniture.
We used that as a reference to help grasp the concept of map making. We talked about how our room might look if we were giants and took the roof off of our classroom so we would look at it from the top. Kind of like looking into a shoe box.
As any good topographer, we did a preliminary scan of the room to get a mental picture of where everything is placed in the room. We came back together so that we could make a map of our classroom. We started off with the immovable objects in the room. First we placed the long narrow rectangle that represented the fireplace on the map. I asked where the fireplace was in the right corner? Or in the left corner? The answer was that it was kind of in the middle of the wall.Next we added the doors and the stairs. With the permanent objects placed, the students got to pick out a colored shape from the bowl (each shape had been labeled) and decide where that object was in the room. Then place it on our classroom map. (We saved gluing the pieces down until we were satisfied that everything was in its' proper place.)
The students struggled a bit at first with a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional object. Once they understood, they really got excited and we spend a lot more time making the map than I had planned. The little red circle (a stool) by the brown rectangle (our group work table) was actually under the table and so it had to be moved out from under the table so that it would show up on the map. This is the finished product. It is a fairly good representation of our classroom. There is one of the red milk crates that is IN the door way and not against the wall like it should be. But, se la vie, they are just learning and I think that they did an awesome job.
Because we had spent so much time (just over an hour) working on the map, I decided to have a simple snack of cheese sticks, Wheat Thin crackers, and apple juice. My original idea was to roll out peanut butter dough (the base of the map), add chocolate chips (mountain range), licorice laces (roads), and mini M & M's (cities) and make a map.
After snack, while the students did their jobs, I had some extra time to work one on one with the students and we did a quick science experiment. They were to answer the question "Will an ice cube melt faster in my bare hand or on my hand with a mitten?" Both of my students thought that it would melt faster on the mitten. After some consideration, I came to the conclusion that since we have talked about insulation on animals to keep them warm, they were confused. Our other science experiments dealt with shortening on our finger to insulate it from the cold and mittens to keep our hands warm in the snow.
Outside we practiced flying the airplanes that we had made a couple of weeks ago. We flew the to see which plane went the furthest, the straightest, and which one would hit our cone target. First we flew our plane, then marked it's landing place with a cone, and tried to fly it farther than our cone. One of the students thought that we needed to make the planes fly higher to make them go farther. So ...
we had a brief discussion about safety (keeping both feet on the deck bench at all times) we headed up onto the deck to fly our planes from higher ground.
They took aim at their furthest cone and with all the umph they could muster, they flew their airplane. Unfortunately they released the plane too far down on their arch so the planes went straight down. I suggested that instead of aiming for the ground they should aim toward a branch on the tree and throw it higher. This help get more distance on the planes, but it didn't help with the aim. I guess we need more practice.
For free play they decided that if one flew their plane and the other student cheered them on the planes would fly better. So a chair was placed at the bottom of the stairs for the cheering section and the other student went up on the deck to fly their plane. Then they traded places. It really warms my heart to watch them when they are so supportive with each other.
To finish off the day we got our Math/Science journal and copied the words that labeled our airplane.
Homework was to make a map of their bedroom; mostly where the bed(s) was (were), placement of the dresser(s), and any other pieces of furniture.The other homework was a Book Buddy Bag and a worksheet, Alligator Appetites.
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