Map Skills Books Roundup {Homeschool Resources}
We’ve been reading around the world through folktales as I homeschool my Kindergarten Bookworm (and Preschool Bookworm), but I should backtrack. First, we laid some geography groundwork 😉 The books below were wonderful to introduce basic map skills and geography. These are recommended for any of the lower elementary grades.
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Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney. Part of a fabulous series (including measurement, time, space, human body, family tree, and senses), this introduces basic map skills via a young girl who explains how to find her room on the map, followed by increasingly “zoomed out” maps (her house, her street, her town, her state, etc.).
Mapping Penny’s World by Loreen Leedy. Also part of a series (including measurement and probability; author Loreen Leedy is a great non-fiction author to get to know with engaging titles on a variety of math topics, too! ), this is a step up from Me on the Map though very similar. Penny maps her room, and then her world, teaching readers about map scales and symbols along the way.
Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions Around the World by Selby Beeler. Talk about an exciting lead-in book for the early elementary crowd! My Kinder Bookworm is absolutely fascinated by the idea of losing teeth and the excitement that follows. This book was a fun way to combine geography with that interest. We found each country on our large map as we read.
My Map Book by Sara Fanelli. This is a fun, non-traditional one! It includes 12 maps of a fictional girl’s world– from the basic (map of my room), to the silly (map of my dog). Illustrations are bold and full of fun details. The cover folds out to a giant map as well.
Non Book Ideas
We love our Hug-a-World (which frequently makes me chuckle as I think of Rory and Lorelai cleaning out their garage) and our oversized map which is laminated and has such peaceful colors!
Some of our favorite map intro activities:
Creating a 3D map of our bedrooms using dollhouse furniture.
Creating maps of our hearts (just the sweetest activity! My boys listed all of the things that have a special place in their heart, including cuddles and nature walks. Aww.). This was inspired by My Map Book by Sara Fanelli (above).
We used nesting cups to illustrate our street address– using the largest cup to show Earth, then North America, then our state, our town, our street. (See title photo below.) This idea was taken from A Year of Playing Skillfully curriculum. You can read about our experience with the curriculum here.
Once the groundwork was laid, we explored some fabulous atlases and books about world geography… look for those in my next post! Do you follow along on Facebook, Instagram, or email subscription (bottom of the blog page)? The books and products mentioned above can be found at the amazon affiliate links provided.
