Grades K-2 Lesson Plan - Creating a Map of Movement

Map 17 Main Page

Core Map: Indexed Standard Guide Map of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1893). Newberry Library call number: Map 2F oG104.C6:2W6 (Printable PDF version of the Core Map)

Overview
In this lesson students will work with the teacher to identify the role of movement within a community. They will analyze a map to learn about transportation and help create a map to show movement in a familiar community.

Objectives
By the end of this lesson students are expected to:

1. recognize the importance of transportation in communities.
2. identify transportation features of an historical map.
3. represent information about transportation from a local community on a map.

Key Terms
key, scale, symbol, community, exposition

Materials
core map, photographs of modes of transportation at the fair (see Resources), electronic drawing program or butcher paper and crayons

Time
One hour

Getting Started

1. As a class, make a list of modes of transportation in your community. (How do you get to school? How do people and things move from one place to another?)

2. Tell students that people sometimes need a map or drawing of what a place looks like so they know where things are located. Ask students how we can show these things on a piece of paper (or on a computer).

1. Ask the students if they have ever been some place that their parents or someone they were with used a map. Tell them that they are going to learn how to draw a map to help people see where things are in a place they know.

2. First, they need to see what a map looks like. Show them the core map. Discuss reasons why someone might need this map. Tell the students that this map was used by people who wanted to know about a fair, a place with rides and exhibits or things to see. It was made over a hundred years ago.

3. Click on locations of the core map to show them pictures of what the fair looked like. Each time you do this ask them what this place in the picture looks like on the map.

4. Depending on the age of your students, choose a community with which they are familiar, such as the classroom or the school. Tell them that they are going to make a map of the area of this community. Ask them what purpose this map might have; why make a map?

5. You could use butcher paper as a class or individual paper sheets if appropriate for your students. Ask students how to show things (in the room or on the schoolgrounds) on a piece of paper. Remind them of the way things looked on the Columbian Exposition map. Draw some basic shapes in their correct relative locations. They should create a legend to explain the symbols that they place on the map.

6. Next, you want to focus on drawing routes of transportation. Emphasize that the routes or paths people take keep the community together. You could make an analogy to a spider's web, or similar structure, if you wish. On school grounds this could include hallways, driveways, streets, paths, walks, and other routes of transportation. For a classroom map you could point out the aisles between desks or how to get from a reading corner to the teacher's desk, for example.

For 3 points, the student fulfills three of the requirements listed above.

For 2 points, the student fulfills two of the requirements listed above.

For 1 point, the student fulfills one of the requirements listed above.

Extensions

1. Have students create a map of a fantasy fair of their own. Ask them what things they would want to see or do at a fair. Make a list of these. Students could cut out or build representations of these attractions. Talk about size and scale before they do this. Ask students where these attractions should be located. Students could place these representations on a part of the floor that you have marked off. Ask students how someone can get to the fair and show this on the map. Do the same with how to get from place to place within the fair. (Maybe even by magic carpet rides or something such as that.)
2. Have students create maps using a draw program on the computer.