Elementary School Lessons Plans

The following are some activities to do with younger children, in the K-2 Range. It introduces basic concepts such as maps and location.

Introducing Maps

Objective To introduce the concept of maps as a place that show location and tell stories

Materials

• Paper map of your town or your country
• Paper
• Crayons
• Computer with access to internet [If possible]

Presentation/Lecture

1. Maps are representation of a place. They normally show roads and location of places. Here is a map of our country. This is our local region. This is our town.[Point to town]. Can someone show me roads on the map? Can someone show me where are rivers or water streams? What else can the map show you? [Discuss other information available on your map]

2. We can also represent maps on the computer. Here is OpenStreetMap. We can use a map on the computer in a different way that we can on paper. This is a map of the world. Can you show me in which continent we live?[Quickly introduce concept of continent if students are at a loss.] Now can we find our country? Our region? Our town? Our neighborhood? Our house school?

Activities

1. Draw your own fantasy map a) Hand out paper and crayons. Tell them to create their own fantasy place. You may have to create a quick fantasy map for them to show them how to do it. Add a treasure to inject a cool story in it automatically.

b) Tell them to share their maps and locations on the maps

2. Tell stories with their fantasy maps Using their fantasy maps, ask them to tell a story about the people who live there.

3. Tell stories with real map. Point out how as their fantasy maps can tell stories, so can real maps. Using the paper map or OpenStreetMap, tell them to tell a story about their lives using the map.

5. Play a simple RPG game on their map. Ask them to create characters to live on their maps. Tell them that they can have a special magic power. Then make their characters move around their maps, engaging with people who live there. Keep the RPG game mechanism to the minimum, and focus instead on encouraging kids to tell the story using the map as much as they can. As the facilitator/game master, keep the story focus and attempt to finish it quick(it may not be easy if the kids get engage.) The game shouldn't last more than 15 or 20 minutes.