11/18/16

Maps Day 1
Objectives:
- The students will be able to participate in the globe game by saying whether their index
finger on their right hand is touching land or water.
- The students will be able to participate in a discussion about what different maps show.
- The students will be able to look at a map and find the names of the continents.
Standards:
- 2 G2.0.2 Describe how the local community is part of a larger region (e.g., county,
metropolitan area, state).
Assessment:
- Formative: I will listen to the students comments, questions, and answers during our
discussion of maps to check if they are understanding the concepts of different types of
maps.
- Summative: I will grade the map papers to know if the students met my objectives.
Materials:
- Blow up globe
- Picture of earth from space
- Map Books
- Flip Books
- Map of the world
- Map handouts
- Colored pencils/crayons
- Chromebooks for each student
- Index cards (1 for each student)
Motivation:
1. Weve already learned about different parts of a community, the types of
communities, and now we are going to learn about maps.
2. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MAPS?
a. Previous schema. How do maps help us?
3. Get in a circle on the carpet. We are going to NICELY toss the ball to each other in
the circle. When you catch the ball, say land if your pointer fingers are on land,
or water if your pointer fingers land on water. We are going to write tallies on the
board for how many times we are touching water vs. land
Development:
1. Play the GLOBE GAME (Tallies should show that we touched water more than land).
a. The earth is made up of water, and only is land.
i. Show the apple (3/4 slices of it being the water, and slices being the
land).
ii. That might seem weird because there is so much land, but there is
much more water.

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3.
4.

5.
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7.

b. Scientists call it the blue marble because from space it looks like a marble and
all you see is blue because there is so much water.
i. Show pic of the earth from space.
GLOBE VS. MAP.
a. What we just used was a globe. A globe is a 3D picture of the world. It is a
circular map of the world that shows the world from a rounded perspective.
b. Another way to show a picture of the world is on a map. A map is a flat picture
of the world. It is 2D, and it shows the world from a flat perspective.
i. We already looked at a globe, and now were going to look at a map.
HAND OUT MAPS BOOK.
a. Have students explore the maps in the book, and share what they notice
about the maps.
Use the map books for this next part! When were looking at a map, we see these
chunks of land.
a. These chunks of land have names and are called CONTINENTS.
b. THERE ARE 7 CONTINENTS!
c. Begin with where we live: North America. This chunk of land up here is
called North America. Find the letter next to N.A, what is it? (F).
i. Write an F in the circle on N.A.
ii. Continue this pattern with the rest.
1. South America.
2. Africa.
3. Europe.
4. Asia.
5. Australia.
6. Antarctica.
d. OCEANS. There are 4 oceans.
i. The ocean on the far left of the map is the Pacific Ocean.
ii. The ocean in the middle of S.A and Africa is the Atlantic Ocean.
iii. The ocean above Asia is the Arctic Ocean.
iv. The ocean between Africa and Australia is the Indian Ocean.
Give students time to work on the map paper. They may use the maps book to help them
fill out the paper.
Hand out Chrome Books. Have students play: Naming Continents Game on
Chromebooks
a. http://www.softschools.com/social_studies/continents/map2.swf
b. Each student will drag the name of the continent to the correct continent.
Explain the flipbook project that the students are going to begin next.
a. You are going to be making a flipbook that shows parts of the world on
different maps. We are going to start by looking at the world from space,
and zoom in to us as people.
b. Show the example flipbook. The first map we are looking at is a map of the
world. We see the 7 continents and 4 oceans on it. WE HAVE OUR
BINOCULARS ON AND ARE COMPLETELY ZOOMED OUT.
i. Color every continent a different color.
ii. Choose a color for Michigan and color it that color on all the maps.

iii. Label the oceans if you want to.

Closure:
1. VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9l4t9QssoA Stop at 1:55
2. Have students get an index card and write one thing they learned about maps today,
and something they still wonder about maps.
REFLECTION:
This lesson went well. The students knew there was more water than land on the globe, but the
activity helped to solidify that knowledge. Even though that activity helped, I wish I would have
asked for predictions before playing the globe game on if there is more water or land. The
students did well with discussing what they noticed about maps as well. I was glad I let them
explore the maps for a little while because they brought up great questions and it caused us to
have a deeper discussion about maps. The students also seemed to enjoy coloring their maps for
their flipbooks, and I think it solidified what they had just learned about the continents.