Aug. 3, 2009 Up The Hill And Far Away
Today, Deedee was amusing herself by pulling all of the picture books off of one of the shelves and then paging through them. Thankfull she did the only with one shelf. We have a ton of picture books and there were enough of them pulled off as it was. I had been busy sewing a gift for a friend and trying to decide what sort of decorative stitch I should use to fix (as well as hide) a mistake so I was busy thumbing through a book as well. Deedee started chortling and giggling to herself in that infectious little way she has and then the next thing I knew she was shoving a book under my face.
It was a board book that I had picked up at the local dollar store last year. It was one of three little lift the flap books that were on various subjects such as the presidents, the United States, and the World. This one happened to be the one for the United States. On each set of pages there is a map of the US and a few of the states color coded with little flaps. She had opened to the page with Idaho on it. She was pointing it out to me and saying that we lived in that "building". And then she brought up my good friend Patti that used to live two doors down from me in our apartment building but had moved to a different unit at the beginning of this summer. (I miss her lots. It's not the same running up the hill across the complex as it was popping over next door).
So I was asked to point out the area we lived in and I did so. Deedee then told me how Patti had moved "up the hill" and now lived really far away. She deliberated on it a little further and then I heard her little chortle and here was the book under my nose once again and Deedee proudly saying "Pattie lives here!" and pointed all the way over to....... Delaware!
I just about died laughing.
it's really wonderful listening to little ones and realizing that they just have no concept of distances. In Deedee's mind she had condensed the breadth of our great county down to the much smaller, manageable size of our lovely little town. So Delaware was now only a few blocks away, and Grandpa & Grandma Scott now lived all the way down in Utah don't cha know (instead of only a couple of miles away).
So this started a fun session about maps, geography and distances. I pulled out the globe, all of our atlases, several National Geographic maps, rulers, manipulatives, etc.We opened up maps and measured them. We looked stuff up in atlases. We spun the globe, put a finger on a country and looked it up to learn more about it. We set up different amounts of manipulatives for different states and countries and then compared them. Deedee still doesn't really grasp just how big those distances actually are. She can count and even has a crude grasp of adding and subtraction but this is still just too big for her. But she still had lots of f un!
A Few Books We Looked At:
- USA Lift-A Flap Book by Greenbriar International. This is the book that started it all. Unfortunately, I can find this nowhere online except for two copies on Amazon. There is no ISBN. ASIN is B002972OEC
- Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton (great little book that's good for introductory map reading) This link is for a compilation of four of Burton's books into one volume titled Mike Mulligan and More
- My Town by Rebecca Treays. This is a great Usborne book
- As the Crow Flies ~ A First Book of Maps by Gail Hartmen
- The Pocket Book of the World by Andrew Morton
- National Geographic United States Atlas for Young Explorers
- National Geographic Close-Up USA Map Series ~ OOP but certainly something to try and get your hands on. I got mine from another mom in my homeschool group. You might try Ebay. It's a large set but worth having. I only have 8 of the maps.
- American Geogrphical Society Around the World Program ~ The original edition is OOP although a second edition was released in the 90's (which I've never seen). These little phamplet type books are awesome. Each book is of a different country or state (I have no idea how many were actually published but I have 24 volumes with the knowledge of at least several others I haven't acquiried). The cover looks like a map and the book itself has lots of info about the subject such as history, geography, sometimes language examples, black & white pictures etc. They originaly came with a sheet of full color picture stickers to be inserted into the book by the new owner and every once in a while you come across a volume that still has it's page of stickers not yet inserted into the book. Those are lots of fun. :) The sets also often came in boxes that could hold up to 6 volumes. I found mine originally at Salvation Army but they're on Ebay quite a bit. These are OOP but not super rare so while they're fun to have, keep in mind that some of them are no longer accurate and are not worth a ton of money so you shouldn't be finding yourself paying more than $3 a volume at the highest.
Cool Sites To Check Out
- Google Earth ~ A really fun online programs that's pretty much a 3-D globe. Check out Geo Education for ways to incorporate Google Earth into your curriculum and lesson plans.
- Homeschool Share ~ Just because you never know what you're going to find here. Try typing in a search for maps and see what it brings you. :)
- Enchanted Learning World Geography
- Montessori for Everyone has some cool stuff for geography, culture, etc. including fun continent kits and study kits.
- Oh, and don't forget to check out Currclick for lots of great map resources as well as other digital curriculum! I dropped in quickly to see if there was anything I could use today. There wasn't but I did see several items I've added to my wishlist.
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