Mapping Activities: I'm beginning to see them as busy work...

[Sweet Home Alabama]

but I'm not ready to throw them out altogether.  My 7th grader is working on medieval history, and I have mapping scheduled throughout the year. (He lables cities/geographical features on printed maps.)  He is behind in these assignments because he is keeping up with harder subjects- pre-algebra, BJU Life Science, and Language Arts/writing.  Math, science, and English are MUCH more important to me than mapping. However, if I totally omit the mapping assignments, he will lose a lot of exposure to where certain places are on a map. 

 

What do all of you do for mapping?  Is there any other way to translate that a certain place/geographical feature is here on the map?  I'd love to tell him to skip these assignments because although the information may be relevant, I REALLY don't think he'll have long term memory for this particular activity. The bottom line becomes that mapping activities are a waste of time.

 

Please give me inspiration. Help me think out-of-the-box.  Share what has worked for you. Or tell me we should skip mapping altogether.

 

Thanks!  :)

 

Oh.... For those of you who also have high school students....This very topic has implications for high school as well.  Have you required mapping for your high schoolers or have you found a way to teach the same skills in a better way?  I'm trying to avoid the feeling of busy-work.

[Mrs Twain]

I am teaching my son to draw the world over 7th-8th grade using:

http://map-of-the-whole-world.weebly.com/how-it-works.html

This is a great program that we only spend a five or ten minutes on each day. I am very pleased with our progress and think this is a valuable skill for life.

 

I also use the workbook Maps, Charts, and Graphs for my son to practice basic map skills.

[Kareni]

I answered in your other thread.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[hollyhock]

Kareni, thank you for mentioning World History Map Activities (in the other thread). I've been looking for something like this for a while and this looks perfect. It's also available as a download at CBD. Thank you!

 

Carry on....

[prairiewindmomma]

I think my understanding of map work has changed over time. I see the basic labelling of maps as ground level work.  A lot of wars and conflict have occurred over the scarcity of resources, over ethnic boundaries that don't line up with geographic boundaries, and over religious v. political control. 

 

Figuring out how geography affected various events is a higher level of analytical work, but I find myself asking those questions in my discussion with my oldest. We use the map in front of us as a discussion tool.

[Holly]

We like the Visits To...series from SCM.  It focuses on learning locations of modern countries, which I find more useful than labeling historic maps.  It also includes cultural information about various countries.  They've also enjoyed Geopuzzles, so we do these in place of map drills on some weeks.

 

We do a bit of mapping with SOTW as well, which my DC have enjoyed so far (we just started using it mid-year).  A couple of them detest filling in mostly blank historical maps, so we would often just look in our historic atlas during our readings.  The SOTW maps don't have as much writing, which my DC have appreciated!

Edited January 1, 2016 by Holly

[Farrar]

I think the majority of mapping activities are busy work for most kids. Most of the things that map activities ask kids to do either are so obvious that they're pointless or they're meant to help reinforce learning places but don't seem to work for most kids. That said, I don't know BJU's specifically at all.

 

I think the most important thing with maps is to be able to read them, use them, and use latitude and longitude - but those are things the vast majority of kids can do by middle school, usually with pretty limited instruction. And then to have enough of a rough map in your head to be able to easily identify places and see their relationship to other places. I think this is a vague skill - I don't think it's important to be able to label a map cold or anything. More to be able to say, oh, that country is in western Africa somewhere, that city is in Russia, that mountain is in Europe, that ancient empire was in the Middle East, etc. And to be able to label some places - enough that you can fill in the blanks when you get new information instead of having to start anew with all new maps. I think most Americans completely lack this skill.

 

[Bluegoat]

Many of the mapwork things I have seen are busywork. 

 

We've talked about how the map works - how to find coordinates and such, and a little bit about things like projection.  The kids have done a minimal amount of map and compass work.  INE, reading a paper map becomes solidified by using the map to navigate, so I expect they will retain that the more we use it.

 

As far as geography, we're mainly literature based.  We use the map to find places we read about in history and also in literature, and sometimes will map things like journeys or movements of people.  I select some thing each year with geography in mind. I don't get stuck in naming and labeling - I'm more concerned with them having a sense of things and places.  As they read more, and live in the world, I think the specifics become more solidified.

[Sweet Home Alabama]

Thanks, ladies. I hear some confirmation. Holly, I haven't heard of the Visits To series. I'll check that out. We use the World Map Activities book in high school with MFW. Even then, I am not 100% sure mapping isn't just busy work.

 

Im going to be more relaxed about maps 2nd semester. Math, science, and LA/writing are the priorities. Sometimes it's hard to let go of anything I have written on the schedule. It is written in concrete after all....or so it feels. I bet some of you can identitfy.

 

Thanks for giving me some ideas for mapping. I needed the inspiration.

[J&JMom]

I have my sons do Shepherd maps online http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/. I only expect them to achieve level 1 - Identify state/country by name for the regions/areas they are currently studying.  I test their map knowledge when they take that regions test. DS13 is currenty studying world geography while DS10, US History.  Now, their curriculum includes lessons on map and graph skills so they get the long/lat, climographs, road/elevation/political/climate/population/resource/industry maps, etc. throughout the year.  I think that is plenty.  However, my youngest was a geography nut last year and played the shepperd map all the way to level 9  [orient and scale a graphic into it's correct location] on his US states!

Edited January 7, 2016 by J&JMom

[Kalmia]

Ellen McHenry's Mapping the World with Art worked well with my kids.

 

http://store.ellenjmchenry.com/?product=mapping-the-world-with-art-hard-copy-cd

 

Also when we were using the three book Human Odyssey series, which has one or two maps per chapter in the textbook, I traced the longitude and latitude lines for each map and asked my oldest to draw the rest of the countries/features and then label them when we got to the event depicted in the map. One step up from just labeling, I guess, but my artsy kid preferred it.

[fourisenough]

I like the concept of GeoBlobbing to start to learn a world 'mental map': http://www.halfahundredacrewood.com/2013/03/continental-blob-maps/. We progressed from that to being able to draw the continents by hand in fairy good detail.

 

We then moved onto learning to draw the USA via Mahalo: http://www.mahalo.com/courses/draw-the-usa/draw-the-usa/introduction/After drawing the political features, we began to add physical features (mountain ranges, rivers, lakes, etc).

 

This year, my daughter is using Ellen McHenry's Mapping the World with Art. 

 

Next year we'll be using Human Odyssey Vol. 1 for history; I really like Kalmia's idea (from previous post in this thread) to draw the maps in that book. Boom! Just figured out geography for next year!

 

I agree with OP that most map labeling work is busy work, but drawing by hand requires a much great level of internalized knowledge and skill. Even muscle memory. We've drawn some maps so many times that my DD11 can recreate them without much thought. Like everything else, though, you have to use-it-or-lose it. We do review them fairly frequently.