Introducing Mapping to the kindies..

I found this fantastic mapping activity on Pinterest (where I find everything that I love!).

I'm using it as a more concrete way of helping the students to understand that community memberships don't have to be exclusive - we are all members of more than one community.

We started the conversation by talking about who we spend a lot of time with, and who are important people in our lives. I asked them to close their eyes while thinking of how they like to spend their time, and who is with them as they do things. They gave asnwers like my family, my soccer team, my friends, my family in another city, intramurals, etc.

Then we talked about how our classroom is a community that we participate in everyday, a place where we learn and  make friends and have fun. I asked them to take a look around at all of the special things that make our classroom 'our classroom' while we walked around the room. The students pointed out alphabet strips, word walls, calendar, our carpet, the blocks, informational posters, etc. I then asked each student to pick one thing that they really enjoy/associate with our classroom, and they drew that on our first 'map' page, and labelled it 'class'.

The link for the full lesson plan is here, and a huge thanks to Jenn and Robi at finallyinfirst for sharing.

Enjoy!

- Ace