This is My Town – Map Making for Little Artists

My 6th grade daughter had been working on a giant multi-paper map of an imaginary town just for funzies. It was filled with nonsense like giant rollercoasters, monsters and malls. It was perfect timing because I needed a short lesson plan for my littles. I whipped up a map template that could be attached with all the roads still lined up.

I talked with my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade students about symbols and how and why we use them on maps. (They help us concisely communicate a lot of information in a small space.) The map template includes a key so students could assign meaning to their symbols. I handed out a print out of example symbols and set the students loose to create their own little town.

It took about a day and a half for students to complete their maps. After they were all turned in I took all the maps in each class and taped them together. Because all the roads line up, each student’s small map because a giant class map. I had a lot of fun coming up with made up city names based on the teacher’s name, printed them out to look like street signs, and hung them all up in the hall. Students loved seeing their own artwork hanging up and trying to find their friend’s work. Teachers got a kick out of the city names and loved the map integration.

It was an all around win for students and teachers. The only bummer was taking all the maps apart in order to hand them all back. If you want to get your hands on your own free map template, you can download it here.