Map reading

Our student teacher Jessica gave some lectures on map reading. Then I wrote a little song with gestures to help learn the directions:

When I’m facing north, north is straight ahead
When I’m facing north, east is to my right
When I’m facing north, west is to my left
When I’m facing north, south is to my back
North south east west, we know directions, we’re the best!

Students would face north and then point each of the directions as they sang about them. Ms. Kelm had a fantastic idea to change the song around and face east, making the location of the other directions different! It was tricky but went pretty well with some prompting and leading of the song. 

After that, we used our gestures for mountain, hill, and lake to recreate maps in the cafeteria. Students had created maps the previous class period, drawing mountains, hills and lake, as well as naming their land. (My group was the land of snowmen.) Then the other groups recreated their map based on the written instructions the group came up with. It was a lot to process and required some teamwork, but overall I think was successful. A really great collaboration with ideas from Jessica, Ms. Kelm and myself!