Mapping My Neighborhood

We took a little field trip to the park up the street, and mapped the neighborhood on the way.  What I liked about this lesson:  It encouraged Sophie to pay attention to street signs, street names, and reinforced what she had learned previously about street numbers!

Lesson:  Mapping My Neighborhood

Objective:  Child will create a map of her neighborhood, identifying streets, street signs, and determine what is deemed important to include on a map.

Materials:  A piece of paper.  Pencil.  Book to write on.  Water and sun hats - it's hot out there!

Process:

1. Instruct child that you will be creating a map of your neighborhood.  Tell child that not everything is included on a map - only important things.  Brainstorm about what would be 'important' enough to put on the map of  your neighborhood.  (Sophie at first thought that the flowers in front of our house were important, because they make seeds to grow other plants.  So I had to reinforce that what is 'important' for a map are things that help us find our way.  Do flowers help us find our way? No.  But street signs do.)
2. Draw out the basic route you will be taking.  I drew our street, and the street we would be walking up to reach our destination, the playground.
3. Start out on your walk, stopping when you come across something that needs to be added to the map.  We added each arterial street as we passed it, and labeled them.  

We added street signs.  We added our house and a friend's house. We added the fire station at the end of the block.  And, of course, the playground itself.