"Buy me a map!"

We've been studying U.S. and World Geography all year using Mapping the World by Heart. This curriculum has some drawbacks and is not exactly what I thought it would be. HOWEVER, we have stuck to our study and are nearly done studying the geography of the world.

One benefit of doing this intensive study is that we've learned that James, age 13, loves maps! When I went to the homeschool convention a couple weeks ago, he had a request. "Bring me back a blank map!" He wanted a large map he could label.

So, I found a lovely large two-sided laminated map for him - world on one side, US on the other. Armed with a colorful set of permanent markers and a fine-tipped black Sharpie, he has (completely on his own) worked on labeling and coloring these maps. FOR FUN!

"It's hard to draw on a grapefruit."

To illustrate the difficulties of translating the realities of a spherical world into a flat 2D map, Mapping the World by Heart suggests drawing a map on a grapefruit and then trying to peel the grapefruit in one big piece and laying it flat. Here are some photos of our experience trying out this lesson.

I think they managed to comprehend the basic concept - a sphere doesn't translate to a flat map.

Mapping the World by Heart

One of the things I am going to do with the kids this summer is Mapping the World by Heart. I've been reading about this curriculum for years, and a discount buy on Homeschool Buyer's Co-op induced me to purchase it for this summer. Our co-op was planning to do this as a class, but the course didn't make the cut after member voting.

Here's an introductory video to the curriculum.


In case you don't have the patience to sit through the video, the goal of the program is to teach kids to draw detailed maps by heart. Suzy is a bit young for the program, as it is designed for grades 5-12, but she could do it again when she's older if need be.

So, check back at the end of summer for our completed maps. I've offered to pay the kids for their maps in order to make the geography time more palatable. Until then, here are a couple samples of maps done by middle school students (more samples HERE):

Try-It Tuesday - Maps and GPS

If you like maps or cool computer apps, or if you have a child that does, give this a try!

The GPS Visualizer

Some of the things you can do there:

• Convert any address (or group of addresses) to longitude/latitude (Come on, I'm sure you've wondered what yours is!)
• Create maps
• Create a Google Earth overlay for an address
  
• Convert your data in a number of ways
• find the distance between two pairs of coordinates
• find the straight-line distance between two locations of any kind
• Draw a direct route between airports
• Draw range rings around a point
• Look up elevations

There is a nice FAQ and some tutorials as well.

Oh, come on - at LEAST figure out your longitude and latitude! I did! I'd post it here, but then you'd know my address. lol