Make a map for someone

Learning goal

Represent a place, consider community needs, and explain change over time.

Before teaching

Can identify familiar places and communicate a route.

Model

Represent a familiar place with a symbol and explain a key. Draw a route between places and ask whether another person could follow it. Compare an earlier classroom sketch with the current arrangement to show change over time.

Guide, then apply

Build or draw a community with places for care, food, living, play, and movement. Decide how shared paper supplies are used. Give the map to a partner, observe confusing parts, and revise. Invite different perspectives on who can use the routes.

Interpret the response

There is no required map layout. Check correspondence between symbols and places, route usability, explanation of change, and a reason for a shared decision. A decorative picture without a usable representation needs explicit modeling.

Support

Use familiar classroom places, tactile symbols, partner drawing, or a map the child directs an adult to make.

Extend when ready

Explain a tradeoff in a community decision and revise the map for a person with a different need. Compare two accounts of an earlier event.

Fresh check

Ask a different partner to use the map without the maker leading them. Record what works and what the child changes.

Teacher plans PDF: page 25. Record exact support and revisit the idea later.