Learn how to create simple models and maps with early years students with this free geography printable!
Teach elementary students about map skills with Me On The Map hands-on activities that help them understand their place in the world. Includes free flipbook.
Social studies for kids is such a fun topic to teach! Kids are naturally curious about the world around them, whether it be their neighborhood community or a continent on the other side of the world! Why not build on their curiosity by inviting them to participate in some fun geography activities! Are you following …
Teach 2nd grade communities with ease with these common core social studies lesson plans. Curriculum includes civics lesson plans.
Kindergarten has been learning all about Community over the past few weeks. Yesterday we went to the fire station and today we finally completed our “in-house community.” Well worth the wait I think. I did it a little differently this year and am very pleased with the changes. In years past it was more of […]
Children will refer to a map, a key, and a compass rose to answer eight questions in this colorful map-reading worksheet.
One of the first projects or themes I find fun, simple and engaging is learning about Communities (2 weeks) and making a map as the culminating activity to end the unit. (For a total of 3 weeks on Community) This week, I started by reading the class a book on maps I got on Amazon. The book was chunked over a period of 2 days to ensure understanding. Maps - Kindergarten Unit After the story, the students were shown real maps that I had saved from going on little road trips. We sat in a circle and talked about what we noticed on them. I had a few kids share out about a time they used a map with their family. Real maps - San Diego, San Francisco I also had some maps from the San Diego Zoo and and some play maps for kids from a teacher supply store. We watched a video on maps and models from the United Streaming's website. Our district purchased user licenses for all teachers to access their videos on our Promethean Boards. I pulled out our old ELD song for communities from Rigby. The red car is on velcro and sticks to the different places in the community. So we fill in the sentence frames depending on where the car lands. On Tuesday, I read the last chunk of the Map book. Then, I pulled out our Writing Web for the power word "go." (The laminated web is from a district purchased program called Learning Headquarters). I taught the sight words "go" under my own structure however as a part of this writing unit in my TPT Store called Rebus Writing using Sight Words. The word "go" is week 5 of the 8 week unit. With a pointer I pointed to the word web and we orally filled out each sentence frame from the word bank. I allowed the kids to draw their own interpretation of a map on a half sheet of drawing paper as a pre-assessment to see where they are. Most kids drew standard pictures of places but some surprised me and had some streets and people walking in the map to different places. On Wednesday, I read them a book on map keys/legends. Map Keys and Legends I put up a class legend on the Promethean board that had four requirements. The sample legend was pre filled and colored and drawn and labeled. I asked the kids to draw a map on a full sized drawing page that had a: school, police station, neighborhood of homes, and a park. The symbol for each was a: building with flag next to it, building with a car next to it, triangles to symbolize a neighborhood, and a slide to symbolize the park. I set the kids to work and could see them looking up and referencing the sample key as they drew their maps. I noticed an improvement in their pictures from the day before. Once all the required components from the class key were on their maps I passed out markers and let them fill in the blanks and put more detail in the map. I cut out small legends that were identical to the one I had on the board and had kids glue it on the corner of their map. They were allowed to take it home. By Thursday, I brought out the colorful construction paper! The neat piles of color coded paper soon got a little messy! I had pre cut them into squares or rectangles. The first to go was blue because everyone was required to put a body of water on their map somewhere. It could be a river, lake, ocean or backyard pool. Also, the black strips I precut were the first to go because those were the streets and kids were allowed to use up to four. Building community maps 1 Building community maps 2 Children got right to work. They were so excited. Each map came out truly unique. As the kids were finished up I had them set up on the rug so the glue could dry and so kids who needed inspiration could come do a carousel walk around the rug and get ideas. Finished maps One of my late finishers added a church to her map even though we never discussed it. Cute! She made her map look like quadrants! She added sand to the beach and a church! The early finishers were doing literacy centers and reading books from the community tub. Building maps was a busy day. On Friday, I handed back their maps and a blank legend key. I asked them to make a legend for their map. Each was different. map key/ legend I had them glue the legends on the back of their maps. I made them a word bank so they could copy. However, some were ready for inventive spelling and didn't need to reference it. If this were done at the end of Kindergarten I would not even offer a word bank on the board. I would ask all kids to use inventive spelling to fill out their legend. If you'd like the free blackline master for the legend see the link at the bottom of this post. IF I HAD IT TO DO OVER AGAIN... I would not have them glue the legends on the back of the maps. I would display it next to the maps because once I mounted them all on the wall I realized they were hidden. LOL! Oh well. Next year I'll have learned my lesson. Wall of Maps! Almost done. Just need to add their name tag underneath each map. After reflection, I wouldn't have just had the kids draw on blank drawing paper. So I created these blackline masters as well. Enjoy! MAPS BLACKLINE MASTERS
It's time for some fun geography hands-on learning! I love mapping activities and have put together a fun printable set to build a city map. This fun printable set is 15 pages long and includes 5 different
Please be gracious and leave feedback- it is completely and utterly the best motivation for me to keep creating! Thank you!! Your students will identify land, water and the continent they live on. They will use some basic map skills to identify places in a neighborhood. There is also an interactiv...
1-2-3 Come Do A Social Studies Icebreaker With Me! "My Home" is a quick and easy "craftivity" perfect for those studying about neighborhoods or families, or use as a sweet icebreaker for the first week of school, as it's a wonderful way to get to know your new students. You can also do this for an easy activity that parents can work on with their child during your Open House. Completed projects make a wonderful back to school bulletin board. If you send a "welcome to school" summer letter out, you could also include the house pattern in that, or send it home the first day of school. Children take home, complete and bring back the next day to share with their new classmates. What an interesting and fun way for them to learn about each other, which also gives them practice sharing in front of the class. So your kiddos get to know a bit about their teacher, make sure to do one for yourself to use as an example. Here's What To Do: Students write their family's last name at the top, write the number of members in their family and then draw a picture of them. Inform children to label their drawing to tell who is represented. Let them know that they can include pets as well. Children glue a photgraph of themselves in the window. For the door, students complete the writing prompt "My favoirte room is..." and then explain why. Some schools still have "knows their address" as a standard, so I've included a window for that as well. Children color their house the appropriate color and cut it out. After students share their homes, make a classroom "neighborhood" as a bulletin board. Click on the link to view/download the My Home back to school icebreaker activity. Thanks for visiting. Feel free to PIN away! My "Pin It" button is at the top. I hope you can stop by tomorrow for another home-sweet-home "craftvity" entitled H is for House. "If you don't risk, you can't grow. If you don't grow, you can't become the best you, you can be!" -Unknown
Hello Everyone! Hope you're having a joyfilled day!! I wanted to share my "Me and My Community" social studies mini unit with you. If you...
Looking for fun and engaging kindergarten social studies resources? Check out the interactive notebook that your students will love!
Third-grade number puzzles help students learn how to interpret multiplication and division in numerous ways.
Our Community Construction Project is causing a lot of excitement this week during first grade social studies. Before spring vacation, the class learned about the concepts of needs and wants within…
Looking for fun and engaging kindergarten social studies resources? Check out the interactive notebook that your students will love!
I have had requests for some of my products in other languages. Well, Chantal sent me this translation in November, and I finally got it...
1-2-3, Come Make a Letter Shape House With Me This quick, easy & fun little craftivity, reviews a variety of standards; more value for your "time buck".Do this sweet craft when you're working on the letter H, shapes (twelve, 2D shapes are included) or doing social studies and studying about families, communities & neighborhoods. To review more standards, when students share completed projects, encourage them to name the shapes & colors they chose, describing where they are located spatially. i.e. "My green rectangle door is beside the yellow window..." etc. For a quick review, I've included 12, colorful flashcards featuring the 2D shapes. If you're also working with fractions, have students draw windowpane lines, "cut" their windows in half and then in quarters. If you have "knows their address" as a standard, have students write theirs in the middle of the letter. I've also included two worksheets in the packet as well. For that finishing touch, add a school photo. Completed projects make an adorable bulletin board too. To celebrate 300 followers, this is a special FREEBIE in my TpT shop. Simply click on the link to grab your copy today. Thanks for stopping by. It's a beautiful 70 degrees today; the sun is shining and I'm feeling especially blessed. Wishing you a wonderful day.
ALL ABOUT EARTH Get ready for a month filled with so many fun activities to teach your kiddos all about our planet Earth . I teach this unit in April so it coincides with Earth Day. I’ve loaded up this blog post post with read aloud book ideas, free videos you can share with your students,
Social Studies: Rural and Urban Communities A hands-on teaching resource designed to give young students an engaging, immersive experience of different community environments. This comprehensive tool is ideal for preschool through grade 3 and offers an in-depth exploration into the diverse worlds of urban, suburban, and rural living. Key Features: Facilitates independent or group-based projects , placing particular emphasis on understanding geographical and sociological differences. The instructions are backed with supportive images for easy comprehension at the targeted age level. Listed materials encourage an organized approach to project planning. Includes a prototype guide on model-building to inspire creative thinking as students customize their models based on chosen settings – a perfect blend of hands-on learning experience with visual structuring! Versatility At Its Best! This intuitive material can be implemented across various educational spectrums – classrooms, large or small group events, home-schooling curriculum or even as part of homework assignments; truly making it a versatile educational tool within your arsenal! Fostering Positive Teacher-Parent Communication To make things easier for educators - there’s also inclusion of letter templates that can be sent out to parents! These letters offer enlightening insights into what children are exploring academically within social studies education framework enriching teacher-parent communication. Bonus Features: Beyond Simple Tasks.. Lorem ipsum Apart from basic project tasks - well-curated suggestions accumulated over time from effective methods applied in teaching about communities have been incorporated within this resource ensuring valuable content ideas A Glimpse ahead... Made available in PDF format - our ultimate aim is fostering active engagement amongst young learners while aiding understanding in sociology – all accomplished via the prism of social studies education using a resource centered around comprehensive learning about related community types. Social Studies: Rural and Urban Communities
ALL ABOUT EARTH Get ready for a month filled with so many fun activities to teach your kiddos all about our planet Earth . I teach this unit in April so it coincides with Earth Day. I’ve loaded up this blog post post with read aloud book ideas, free videos you can share with your students,
10 Creative One-Pager Ideas for Social Studies As a social studies teacher, you understand that the subject is one of the most important asp...
We are now doing the theme on My Community. Below is our theme board. Here, we depicted a normal neighbourhood scene with shops, people as well as the mode of transportation. This is a very interesting theme because most of the children are familiar with the buildings. We talked about the buildings around Bandar Sri Damansara (where Little Beans is) and of course MacDonald's, Grand Union, Berry's Bakery and even Klinik Kanak-Kanak London are familiar landmarks to them. Of course, we talked about 7-11, and some are puzzled that it can be open for 24 hours. A five-year old boy wondered why the people working inside 7-11 need not sleep. Teacher explained that they worked in shifts, and they take turns to sleep. I would also like to take this opportunity to talk to them about traffic rules, road safety as well as paying for parking. Parents, are you guilty of not feeding the meter when you park your car? I know many are ... the children told me that "My daddy never put coins into the parking meter", or "Mummy says not need to pay...." Aha....children are observant, aren't they? The theme board is a very useful tool to convey positive messages. Looking at the theme board, we see many people in the midst of daily activities. There are people of different races to reflect the diversity of Malaysia. Also, good habits such as recycling or helping the elderly are incorporated into the board as a gentle reminder to the children. Buildings in and around my neighbourhood. Reuse, reduce and recycle Helping grandma as she walks. Little boy playing outside his school. Policeman helping to control the traffic. Man running after a taxi. The fire station. The bakery - incidentally, we will be taking the children to a bakery soon to have a hands-on experience of baking and decorating their own cupcakes and pastry.
Happy Sunday. I'm linking up with Collaboration Cuties to share a favorite text to use with social studies. One of my favorite social studies books is Mapping Penny's World by Loreen Leedy. This book is very similar to Me On the Map by Joan Sweeney (another favorite). In this book Lisa learns about different types of maps. She uses her dog Penny to complete a mapping project. I love this book because of the illustrations, the in depth explanation of maps, and because it is part of a series of three books that feature Penny (Measuring Penny and It's Probably Penny). My first graders love all of these books. Below you will find a freebie to use with Mapping Penny's World. Students can draw a maps of their bedrooms and create a key to go with their maps. Click on the picture below if you would like a copy. The clip art is from Scrappin Doodles. I highly recommend Mapping Penny's World and all of the other Penny books for your classroom library. The stories are cute, the information is abundant, and your kids will really enjoy them. For more tried and true recommendation head on over to Collaboration Cuties and check out the other Must Read Mentor Texts for social studies. Thanks for reading and have a great week.
Yikes! This has been a quite a week in my first grade classroom! I anticipated a bit of chaos due to parent conferences, picture day, and concession sales, but I sure was not prepared for the amount of crazy that ensued yesterday! Here is a little sneak peak at the reason for all the insanity in my room! Meet "Skinky" the skink! (who is a little blurry because I was seriously freaked out by her appearance in my room!) It all started Wednesday afternoon as I was leaving the building. I opened the back door to exit and felt something creepy and smooth race over my foot! I screamed my head off thinking that it was a snake as they have been known to lurk around our back storage area. When I looked down, I was startled to see that I had accidentally let some sort of lizard into the building! Of course, I nearly scared it half to death, so it took off into my teammate's room, which is connected to mine. My favorite custodian was unable to catch him, so I went home and told my husband the crazy story. He lovingly assured me that the lizard would definitely be long gone from my room by the next morning. Little did he know that I'm not that lucky... So, yesterday started out pretty normal. I warned my kiddos as well as my principal and teammate next door about the lizard on the loose. They all laughed and thought I was crazy for worrying so much about it. As the day went on, I was a little jumpy, but I tried to push the thought of the creepy creature out of my mind. That is, until our afternoon read-aloud time. As I went to sit down on my rocking chair, I suddenly realized that I was about to sit on the intruding lizard!! It was all curled up, smack in the middle of the cushion on my seat! So much for calm, structured teaching...I went berserk screaming, jumping, and yelling for help! Fortunately, my principal came to the rescue, and the kids all clapped and cheered when our visitor, who turned out to be a female skink, was captured. Needless to say, all my planned teaching for the remainder of the day was sidetracked by this critter encounter. We did a little research and learned that skinks can lose their tails when frightened, and I am sooo glad that I did not have a loose tail flip-flopping around my room! I would have really lost it! The kids really enjoyed reading and writing about the skink, and even though it was unplanned, it turned out to be a great learning experience for all of us. And here I thought the highlight of the week would be our 3-D map that we made in Social Studies! Ha! Here are some photos of our 3-D map and the Circle within a Circle within a Circle Map we created to describe homes, neighborhoods, and communities. In other crazy and exciting news, I am very thrilled and a little overwhelmed by the fact that so many of you have found my Binder Covers useful! I had a request to add monthly binders for June and July, so those are now included if you'd like to redownload the file for Free from TPT. Also, if you have been to my store, you may have noticed some small changes. The organizing and spring cleaning bug has definitely bitten me, so I'm working on making over my products. If you already own my Classroom Jobs Pocket Chart or Magnetic Set, it is now fancy schmancy with updated graphics, some new job titles, and it comes in six color schemes to match any classroom. If you own my previous set, you can update yours for free by simply re-downloading it! The final bit of excitement...the winners! Please send me an email at [email protected] indicating which item you would like me to send to you! Have a wonderful weekend!
Introduce your students to geography basics with this fun mapping activity! Designed for Kindergarten-2nd grade learners, this illustrated printable helps kids gain core geographic literacy skills by creating a map of their own neighborhood. Students will draw and label places like their home, school, the park, stores, and more. Then they'll answer questions to reinforce concepts like proximity, directions, and personal connections to places. The activity builds spatial awareness and map reading abilities in an engaging, hands-on way. This worksheet is perfect for lessons on maps, geography, social studies, and more. The simple design is ideal for early elementary grades. Pair it with globes, map puzzles, or field trips to help further develop geographic knowledge. Bring social studies to life while assessing your students' basic geographic skills. This neighborhood mapping worksheet makes map reading interactive and fun! Download it for your classroom today! This is a digital product.
High-quality and engaging social studies interactive notebook resources that are developmentally appropriate for kindergarten can be hard to find! Covering a wide array of social studies topics, this interactive notebook keeps kindergarten learning organized in one convenient location! This interactive notebook includes the following resources that are perfect for kindergarten: Over 100 interactive worksheets Social studies posters and sorts for whole-class instruction Over 130 vocabulary cards This notebook is the perfect companion to any kindergarten social studies curriculum. After learning about a social studies topic through books and videos, use this interactive social studies notebook to check for understanding of the concept. This resource can also be used in centers or as morning work! Is your social studies curriculum lacking key components? This interactive notebook is the perfect addition to your social studies resources! Grow your student's social studies vocabulary and easily check for understanding with these engaging worksheets. The best part? All social studies learning is organized in one central location! Students love adding to their social studies notebook and teachers love being able to easily show parents and administration what their students have been learning in one compact notebook! TEACHERS LIKE YOU SAID… ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Carrie said “My students loved this resource for their social studies curriculum and as an interactive notebook. The kids loved creating it as well as the hands-on aspect of it. It compounded their learning by using many disciplines of learning. They loved showing it to their parents and it was a fantastic resource to send home at the end of the year!” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Denise said “I appreciate this all-in-one resource! It is hard to find engaging and appropriate Social Studies activities for Kinder, but is perfect! We also have our Social Studies during the afternoon time and the littles need all the hands-on activities they can get! This resource is amazingly perfect in all kinds of ways! Thank you!” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Asia said “I can't say enough positives about your journal units! This is so thorough and engaging for the students. Not to mention a time saver, hunting for each standard! I can't wait to see what else you make. Thank you so much!” Pick and choose the topics you would like to cover in a year and build your social studies curriculum around this resource. Topics include: Rules and Manners - Good vs bad choices, good listeners, problems and solutions, school/home/community rules Emotions - Identifying emotions, recognizing feelings, actions and consequences, anger management Calendar - days of the week, days of the month Holidays - Veterans Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Earth Day, 4th of July Concept Sorts - Past vs. present, needs vs. wants, good vs. services, inventors Maps - Position words, compass skills, classroom map, legends, globe Famous Americans - George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, Benjamin Franklin, Johnny Appleseed, Amelia Earhart, Ruby Bridges, Christopher Colombus, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, The Wright Brothers American Symbols - The Liberty Bell, The Statue of Liberty, theeagle, The Lincoln Memorial, The Washington Monument, The White House, The American flag Community Helpers - Matching activities, labeling, chef, doctor, firefighter, mail carrier, police officer, teacher, trash collector, veterinarian Do you want to see how I use this notebook in my classroom? Check out these blog posts that give you an idea of how to use this resource in your kindergarten classroom: Past vs. Present Social Studies Lesson Social Studies Journals for Kindergarten The Best Social Studies Books for Kindergarten President’s Day Resources Resources to Teach Needs vs. Wants ⭐️ Bundle & save for a discount ⭐️ Purchase the Kindergarten Interactive NotebookBundle to get this source plus: Interactive Science Notebook for Kindergarten Interactive Math Notebook for Kindergarten Interactive Language and Grammar Notebook for Kindergarten Connect With Me! Mrs. B's Beehive Website Mrs. B's Beehive on Facebook Mrs. B's Beehive on Instagram Mrs. B's Beehive on TPT Having difficulty with a file? Visit the FAQs section, submit a help ticket, or ask a question on the Q& A tab before leaving feedback. Copyright © Cori Blubaugh @ Mrs. B’s Beehive Permission to copy for single classroom use only. Please purchase additional licenses if you intend to share this product.
My class this year has been fascinated with maps. They love to look at the maps we have in the block center, and they often draw maps in the art center.
We just had our school wide Engineering Fair and it was a HUGE success! My school is located in Albemarle County, Virginia which is home to the University of Virginia. Several classrooms in my building were working with The University's Curry School of Education and the UVA School of Engineering since the start of school last fall. We were given printers and fabricators to use with software (Fablab and Community Construction) that was designed by people in the Engineering department at UVA. I was one of the fortunate teachers that got to work with these talented people. We worked on several different projects but our favorite is the comparison communities we made showing Long Ago and Today. One of our state's Standards of Learning (SOL's) is comparing life from today with that of long ago. Before I even began to teach this concept I showed the kids pictures and read books about buildings. We talked about the shapes that we saw in them. Then we did a wonderful art project I found on http://www.deepspacesparkle.com that had to do with shapes and buildings. Here are some samples of the finished product. When I began to teach the SOL, I started out by reading the book "A Street Through Time" and having the kids tell me as we went through each era what they saw that stayed the same and what was different. We brainstormed all businesses and buildings that we see here in Charlottesville and then made a list. We sorted them into different sections such as businesses that help us, ones that keep us safe, ones that are fun, etc. This tied into our Economics Unit of Needs and Wants and Buyers and Sellers. We then designed our community and decided what "Earth" features we wanted in it. We knew that all living things need water, so the kids said we would need to have either a lake or a river. They ended up deciding that they wanted both. They continued to design the community putting in a railroad, roads and bridges. Then we were ready to plan our community: where we wanted the buildings to go. We used squares of paper and the conversation the kids had doing this was awesome. They really thought out where things should go and thought about the problems that may come from a placement. It was really amazing to hear them at this young age problem solve together. Now it was time to work with our friends from UVA. They came in along with our Gifted Resource teacher and the kids worked on the computers making their buildings. They used the Community Construction software and each child made 4 buildings. 2 businesses from today, 1 home from today and 1 home from long ago. The kids got to pick the size of their buildings along with the siding that would go on it. Again, they did a fantastic job thinking about what the building should look like. I went online and found different kinds of roofs and sidings for them to choose from. From there we printed and fabricated the buildings. The kids loved watching them come out of the machine (it's called a Silhouette) and seeing the buildings go from a 2D shape into a 3D shape. When all of the buildings were finished, we then went back to our community we mapped out and started to put the buildings down. The comparison between the Community of Today with that of Long Ago came alive before their eyes. It was a very fun way to learn about the differences. Our Community of Today Our Long Ago Community Here are what some of the buildings looked like close up. Look at the details in the sidings and the roofs, pretty cool! Then we wrote about all we did to make these communities, the struggles and the triumphs we experienced. We also wrote about the comparisons between the two communities, what would be the same and different from living Today and Long Ago. Our final step will be to go on a field trip to a Living History Museum called the Frontier Culture Museum located in Staunton, Virginia that has houses from Long Ago. The cool part is my kids will be looking not only on how they looked, lived and dressed but also at the architecture of the buildings. I've attached the design brief that I wrote for this project. Download Design Brief Here
Discover our captivating "My Neighborhood" digital worksheet, carefully crafted for educators who aim to enrich their students' comprehension of the local history, culture, and community they live in. Engage your students by uncovering stories about the essential people, places, and events in your neighborhood. Our visually appealing digital worksheet comprises a single product file full of intriguing questions that stimulate students' curiosity while encouraging them to actively explore their environments. This amazing resource is ideal for both face-to-face and remote learning settings, fostering individual research abilities as well as cooperation among peers. By implementing this unique "My Neighborhood" activity into your classroom routine, you not only allow your pupils to form a personal connection with their local history but also help them develop vital critical thinking skills necessary for academic success and life beyond school. Imagine witnessing your students turning into passionate history sleuths – piecing together intriguing tales about their own communities while gaining valuable insights along the way. Don't let this memorable learning experience pass by! Equip your classroom with this exceptional educational tool today by visiting teachsimple.com/product/my-neighborhood-worksheet! My Neighborhood Worksheet
A fun way to take a neighborhood walk with kids is to use this free neighborhood seek and find printable to go on a scavenger hunt in your own backyard!
Learn how to create simple models and maps with early years students with this free geography printable!
