KDH received thank you notes from grandparents after sending Rosh Hashanah cards. Some of these notes included the states the grandparents live in which sparked our curiosity. Where is Kansas? Where is Pennsylvania. We pulled out fabric and paper US maps and took a look. Once we found these states the children wondered where California and North Carolina are. Slowly we located all of the states our grandparents live in. Then the children decided to find Georgia, states where other relatives live, states they visited, states with mountains, and more. Why stop with the US? The children asked about Mexico, Spain, Israel, and other countries, so we pulled out world maps. When we saw a picture of the Earth in a space book, the children asked where we are on the Earth which brought us back to our maps.
Kitah Daled Hay's interest in maps gave us the idea to start our Thanksgiving preparations with marking on a map where our relatives live. The children colored wood push pins and placed them on our U.S and world maps observing the colors and shapes of the countries and states and the letters in their names. Some children placed one push pin in a location and other children placed one push pin for each member of the family that lives in the location.
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| coloring push pins to mark the map |
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| “six push pins one for each person in my family” |
Comparing many maps and globes led to an interesting discussion about what color the world really is. Looking at the globe one child said, “the United States is pink and the Earth is all the colors - yellow, pink.” Another child was looking at the photo of the Earth in the space book and said, “it is green and blue.”
Our maps pop up everywhere. In Playball, we jumped through hoops Coach called islands like the Galapagos so we marked them on our world map. Coach also taught us that the biggest circle in the world is the equator and we marked that. When our map accidentally tore a bit on a crease, children quickly fixed it with a line of push pins and show the line proudly. When we read “Do Unto Otters” we learned “do unto others as you want them to do unto you” was said first in Greece so we marked this country on our map. Recently we received a special package from a class in Portland, Oregon. In addition to marking Portland on our map, we used a piece of yarn to see the distance the package traveled to us in Atlanta.
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| looking for our grandparents' states |
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| marking California |
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| reaching for New York |
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| examining the four corners states |
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| "the package took three sharp turns" to get from Portland to Atlanta |
