Fun and Easy Extension Activities from Maps and Globes from Sonlight’s HBL K program
****Please! Read all instructions before getting supplies. I tried, with the exception of Play-Doh, to limit it to things most of us have around the house or can easily come by, so you shouldn’t really need a lot of supplies.***. The supplies listed are Amazon Affiliate links, so I make a tiny amount off of them, but please don’t buy anything you don’t need. 🙂
To keep this from violating Sonlight’s copyright, I divided the activities into sets, and if you’re following the schedule, the sets will make sense. If not, they still should work.
Supply List:
Air-Dry Clay (or Oven Bake Clay or other types of playdoh or playdoh substitute of your choice (and food coloring if you’re making homemade to make colored dough)
Crayons, markers, colored pencils, or other coloring implements of choice.
Paper and pencil
Paper or flexible map (optional, can use regular paper for one activity, or use the map in your guide for another activity
Ruler or string
Pen
Poster board (any color, but a green or blue background for earth or water might be helpful to adding color to your map background), available in single sheets at most stores with a good school supply section. We got ours for 64 cents at Walmart.
Set 1
Using clay or an alternative, have your child roll or press out a handful. Use sticks or pencils to draw your own map. Bake or dry if desired.
Your child might like watching the first few minutes of this video. It’s not exactly about the topic at hand, but does cover some interesting topics. https://youtu.be/4DlNhbkPiYY
Set 2
Have your child try to draw a picture of what your neighborhood looks like, without referring to any map. If possible, compare to a map of your area (either printed or online) to see how accurate it is. If their map is fairly accurate, try having them place buildings they know less well or are a little further away.
Video about getting to know your globe: https://youtu.be/x7k7CeWDtWs
Set 3
On a map or globe, track Magellan’s journey. For those who might be unfamiliar with the story, there was a point in the journey where Magellan himself died, and a man named Elcano finished the voyage, but Magellan got all the credit.
The Straits of Magellan is a passage at the tip of South America, where there is a passage of water making the journey shorter, but more dangerous. This was named after Ferdinand Magellan.
There are surprisingly (well, maybe not) few short, engaging videos for children about Magellan. This one is better than the others I tried.
Set 4
Try wrapping a piece of paper or a paper map around a ball or globe. See if they can get it to lay perfectly flat with no wrinkles. If they think they have it flat, point out areas on the map that might have gotten scrunched up or torn to make it lay flat. Show them how the map edges won’t meet nicely and have to be adjusted. They’ll have either too little paper or too much left over.
Watch how globes are actually made. https://youtu.be/qgErv6M19yY
Set 5
Memorize your Cardinal Directions. Learn which direction North, South, East, and West are in your house if you don’t know already. If you don’t have a compass, there are apps that can act like a compass.
Then teach the directions to your children and play the directions game.
This song might be interesting to some children to help with vocabulary terms. https://youtu.be/_pOKoIAnybg
Set 6
Practice measuring distance on a map. If you don’t have one, use the one in your guide or print one out. You can use either a ruler or a string. Or both.
Instructions on how to measure distance: https://youtu.be/V3QxrX0MYu4
Set 7
Practice Latitude and Longitude. https://youtu.be/cKT16DjHo_8
Here’s a song that might help those musically inclined children
Sets 8-10
We are going to be creating a map similar to the one we did for My Father’s Dragon.
I will try to come back later and post specific directions, but it’s going to be very similar.
For set 8, we will be deciding what we want to map and drawing a sample on paper. Then we’ll transfer it over to the posterboard with a pencil and outline it in black marker once it’s the way we want it to look.
In set 9, we will be deciding whether we want a political map or a topical one, and use our playdoh to create layers.
In set 10, we will use household items to make a key and decorate it. Then we will show it off!
