I’m so excited, ladies! My friend, Linda B., has posted about a map technique she was taught when attending school overseas. This is a map study that was used in British schools for many years, she told me.
Linda said, “I would just about be willing to bet money that this is what Charlotte Mason’s students did for Geography, because this is how British children did it for many generations. My map book was one of my childhood treasures and I wish it had been saved! I wanted my students to learn how to do it because it is already a lost art.”
(missingtheshire, does this technique look familiar?)
What excites me most about this technique is how closely it is related to Charlotte Mason’s method for nature study. Sure, it would be faster just to print a map of the area, just as it would be faster to print a picture of a rose. But it is the act of tracing the map, or drawing the rose, that encourages close observation and a personal relation. And I love how Linda explained that you could personalize your maps.
I’m planning to incorporate this technique in future map drill times. Love it!
I have read something like this somewhere but the technique was used to map an outline in a pizza box to make a saltdough map. I’ve always wanted to do this technique, even bought the tracing paper, but just never did it. I think it’s a wonderful, hands on project for anyone (that’s not busywork!) and hopefully we’ll get to it some day.
Those ones were done with video instruction from the mentor and the main references were just the equator and prime peridian…. but as we went along, it has gone to how to do a map using a grid. Delta did a fantastic one of Canada for cubs (I haven’t scanned it). Basically it is drawing a grid on the original (I want to make up a grid on a transparancy for use in our atlas) and a light grid on your paper, then copying it square by square.)
This year we’ve used labeled maps that I placed into page protectors, which saves on copy costs. The children trace the maps with dry erase markers that wipe clean. When they feel confident, they draw atheist particular map (or part of it) that they’ve been working on from memory. It’s amazing what they’ve been able to learn this way! I’ve kept many of their tries at recreating maps from memory to show progress.
This sounds like a keepsake type project that we will add to our study over time. Our family lives cartography! Thanks for sharing.
So tell me how to do map drills. How many times a week do you do them?
Lets say we start with the United States. Do you take one state at a time and draw and label it or a few of the states at one time? I have a 7th and 10th grader.