Milk Carton Communities, Map Skills and a FREEBIE!

TGI{almost}F! I am so ready for a three day weekend! This week has flown by, just as this new school year has! We have been having a lot of fun with our 2nd graders :) This is going to be a big old social studies/geography post!

We have been learning about different communities and have started our mapping skills! We read the story Iris and Walter from our basal to learn the difference between the city and country. Then we learned the fancy names to describe those communties: urban and rural! {I just love hearing our sweeties say "rural!"} We read another story from our basal called I Like Where I Am because it let the students see the suburbs! We made venn diagrams and sorted descriptions of each community on our bulletin board.

 

Then we made our adorable milk carton communities, which was a big hit. It looks like our skyscrapers are blowing in the wind, whoops :)

 

Cute, right?! Today we started our mapping skills and went over map titles and map keys. We mapped our milk carton communities and the kids did a great job!

 

 

For the next few days we will be working on mapping skills. We will read the book Mapping Penny's World and the kiddos will each make a map of our classroom! Then they will work in small groups and use my Mapping Our World! freebie to make a map of a town! This really allows them to work on their cardinal directions. Pick up your FREE copy by clicking on the picture below :) You can totally tell I made this back at the start of my TpT days! HA!







If you download this, let me know what you think! Enjoy your three day weekend, friends :)

Mapping Our World! {Freebie!}

Hey all! I hope everyone has has had a great week! It feels like fall here today and I am LOVING it!! We have started working on plants this week, but I have not taken photos yet, so I will share a quick activity we did last week with our mapping skills! {Get the FREEBIE at the end of the post!}

 

Before we really started mapping, we read

It's a cute story that is a wonderful intro to mapping skills! It teaches all the parts of a map {title, map key, compass rose, etc.} It also teaches about different kinds of maps. We practiced our directions, taught them "Never Eat Sour Watermelons," and made some maps together as a class.

 

Then I typed up some directions, and as a group they had to make a map of a community. They had to come up with a title, draw the compass rose, and come up with the symbols for their map key. Then they had to follow the checklist of directions to construct their map! They did an awesome job!

 

 

 

 

Click HERE to get your mapping activity FREEBIE {You get the directions to construct the map, a blank map key and blank title template}.

 

Be sure to follow my store and leave a rating if you download! Have a wonderful weekend, friends!