Geography Blobbing

[KristenR]

Who here is blobbing a la The Core? I am desperately trying to find a printable map of the earth with the 5 great circles and the outlines of the continents. I would prefer it not to have all the other longitude and latitude lines at this point but would be willing to concede on that if that's all that's out there.

 

I am trying to find out that will print out the full size of a sheet of paper. Not smaller or larger. Any links to share?

[violamama]

According to this, Draw Write Now volume 7 has help on doing this:

http://www.whispersprings.com/homeschooling/learning-geography-by-heart/

 

I wonder if it's hard to find a printable precisely because it's supposed to be super simplified and done by hand...

[stm4him]

Thank you! I've had the hardest time finding a map that had the Arctic and Antarctic Circles on it and so I couldn't tell my kiddos how to line it up with the continents exactly. I was about to try without that and just use DWN 7. I also bought Draw Your World from Winter Promise but I haven't seen it yet and there are no samples online that I could see so I'm just hoping it was a good buy. We were going to try to do it daily but it keeps falling off the schedule so I think I'll just try to do it weekly instead......

[violamama]

Here's another blogger description of what they do:

http://solagratiamom.blogspot.com/2012/08/geography-teaching-drawing-maps.html

 

True confession: I've not really started this yet with my sons, even though I know they would love it!

[MeganW]

We have placemat maps. I copied and shrunk one of those until I got it to the size of a piece of 8 1/2 by 11 paper. I used that to figure out the scale FOR ME, but I don't have the kids tracing - we look at the placemat maps & draw.

 

On our placemat maps, I traced the 5 main latitude lines, and the prime meridian. I also outlined each continent in a very very simplified form. Africa looks like a rectangle on top of a triangle, for example. Australia is a crescent on it's side, another identical one below, and lines on the sides connecting. N America and S. America are just a triangles. We'll go for more detail when we place these one the correct lines with somewhat appropriate proportions. :)

[KristenR]

Thanks everyone. That world map w/ the 5 circles linked on the blog was perfect!

 

My next question would be- after the student folds the paper to create the equator and prime meridian lines- is there a trick to lining up the rest of the circles? Any neat way to fold the paper to get it to line up correctly? Or is that when it's simply a matter of transposing from the map?

[Jay3fer]

I think the point of it is that it's FREEHAND and you're not aiming for perfection, at least the first few times.

 

Here are the steps I did to get the lines on the page more or less evenly. I made this up on my own; we're not doing CC but I thought this was a worthwhile practice.

• We started with a hot-dog fold, then a hamburger fold, to create the basic crease.
  
• Then, we drew the Tropics straight across, freehand.
  
• We folded the paper hot-dog style again, this time between from the top of the page to the “Cancer†line and from the bottom to the “Capricorn†line, to create the Arctic and Antarctic Circles.
  
• Finally, we drew straight lines in all the fold lines for emphasis.
  

 

Here's the full blog post with pics:

http://ronypony.blogspot.ca/2011/03/geography-by-heart-great-circles-and.html

Wish we could get around to doing this again! Can't believe it's been almost 2 years already...

[KristenR]

I think the point of it is that it's FREEHAND and you're not aiming for perfection, at least the first few times.

 

Here are the steps I did to get the lines on the page more or less evenly. I made this up on my own; we're not doing CC but I thought this was a worthwhile practice.

• We started with a hot-dog fold, then a hamburger fold, to create the basic crease.
  
• Then, we drew the Tropics straight across, freehand.
  
• We folded the paper hot-dog style again, this time between from the top of the page to the “Cancer†line and from the bottom to the “Capricorn†line, to create the Arctic and Antarctic Circles.
  
• Finally, we drew straight lines in all the fold lines for emphasis.
  

Here's the full blog post with pics:

http://ronypony.blog...ircles-and.html

Wish we could get around to doing this again! Can't believe it's been almost 2 years already...

 

Thanks for your link. It's exactly what I was looking for with regards to the fold. I figured folding it would make it that much easier for my girls to trace the line. I'm not aiming for perfection per se but ease at this point for my younger kids and I think that folding the paper to help give them guide lines will make it that much easier for them.

Your post was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks again!

 

Oh- the link you have to the CC article on blobbing is no longer available. If you come across it again please send it my way. I'd love to check it out.