Lisa Aremband 11/7/10 Mapmaking on the Playground Grade Level: 2nd Grade Number of Students: 22 Time Allotment per

Lesson: 30 minutes for each lesson Section 1: 1. What big ideas, themes, and/or enduring questions will be investigated in these lessons? We will investigate the idea of favorite and least favorite places on the playground, and answer the question of whether there are patterns in the classs playground place preferences. This will tie in to the human-environment interaction piece of the lesson as we discuss what features of the environment inform the students choices of favorite and least favorite places, and how the popularity of the location affects its physical properties. We will also look at maps as a big idea, how to make them and how to read them. 2. What are the topics etc. that will be studied in these lessons? We will study basic features of maps, such as using little drawings to represent objects, and strategies for reading maps. We will also cover how to make and add to a map. Then, we will talk about our favorite and least favorite places on the playground. 3. What standards do these lessons address? From MA History and Social Science Curriculum Framework Grade 2 Concepts and Skills: 4. Describe how maps and globes depict geographical information in different ways. 5. Read globes and maps and follow narrative accounts using them. 4. Formulate lessons as an inquiry. - Is there a pattern of favorite and least favorite places in our class? - What would a map of our playground look like? 5. Other elements of my rationale: I think that looking at individual preference versus class preferences will help strengthen my students consciousness of their classroom community and help them become more cohesive. Large Educational Purposes: - To expose the students to the purposes for and uses of maps, and give them basic mapmaking and reading skills - To expose them to the basic ideas of human-environment interaction and the applicability of the principle to their lives Learning Goals: Lesson 1: Whole Class Mapmaking

- Understand basic features and uses of maps - Be able to read a map and understand what it represents Lesson 2: Individual Mapmaking - Be able to create a map that corresponds to a familiar place - Be able to talk and think about the map as it relates to the place Lesson 3: Discussion of Favorite and Least Favorite Places - Be able to notice patterns in class data shown on the map - Be able to think of the reasons for these patterns Section 2: i. What products or performances will your students undertake? During the first lesson, I will evaluate students understanding based on their verbal responses. After the second lesson, I will collect their maps and evaluate them. During the third lesson, I will evaluate their ability to put up their stickers on the big map in approximately the same place as on their little map, and also their verbal responses during discussion. What criteria will you employ when studying your students products or performances? During the first lesson, I will be looking for accurate answers to my questions and prompts. For example, if I ask where the monkey bars should go, and a student is not able to answer or wants to put them in the middle of the kickball field, they will not have met the criteria. After the second lesson I will look for correct use of mapmaking techniques; have they drawn things in their correct locations and relatively accurate sizes? Have they used symbols and labels? Does the map make sense? During the third lesson I will evaluate how closely their stickers on the big map match their symbols on their own maps. I will also evaluate their verbal responses during the discussion by asking them to provide examples of the human-environment interaction. Section 3: Lesson 1: Whole-Class Mapmaking Modeling Have students sit at their desks and put up an incomplete map of the playground on the Elmo. You will have previously gone out and mapped out the playground beforehand. The map should have boundaries, and enough key features to make it recognizable. Mark off all the major areas, but not all the equipment and landmarks. Tell the kids, Today were going to be doing some work with maps. What are some times when you might use a map? Go over usesnavigation, finding out proximities and distances, treasure maps, and whatever else they think of. Once theyve got an idea of why maps are useful, say, Were going to learn about reading and making maps. Its important to know how to make maps so that you can tell others what you know; you could make a map of something that would help someone learn about that place, or be able to get somewhere. Uncover your map. Can anyone tell me what this is a map of? How do you know? Go over the main features of the map, then ask the class to close their eyes and try to picture the playground. Is there anything in your picture thats not on this map? Get a suggestion you like, then talk through putting it on the map. For example, if someone says that the basketball hoops ii.

are missing, ask, In your picture in your mind, where are the basketball hoops? What are they near? So where on our map should they go? Im going to draw a little person to help me figure out how tall I should make them. I know the real basketball hoops are taller than I am, so Ill make these basketball hoops taller than the person. Does that look right? Dont focus too much on scale, mostly focus on putting things in their correct places. Take more suggestions, and when someone suggests something difficult to draw, talk about using symbols. Im not going to draw the whole thing because its very complicated, so instead Im going to make a little picture that looks like it and use a label. What does a label do? It tell us what something is. So Im going to draw a line from the climbing ball [for example] and write, climbing ball. This will tell whoever is reading this map that this picture means the climbing ball. Map a few more items, then stop and say, Later in the week/ next week were going to be going out to the playground to do some more work on our map. In between now and then, pay special attention to whats on the playground so that when its time to add to the map youll already have some ideas about what you need to add. Lesson 2: Individual Mapmaking Gather the students in the meeting area and reintroduce the subject: Today were going to be doing some more work on our maps. Do you remember what we did last time when we worked on the map together? Ive made you each a copy of the map, and we are going to take clipboards and pencils and go out onto the playground to do some more mapping. I want you to pay close attention to what you see outside and try to notice things that you dont normally notice. What do you remember about how I added to the map last time; what did I do? Go over map-making strategies, then over rules and procedures for going outside. Take them outside and give them five minutes to map. Monitor their progress. After five minutes, call them together using the chimes and say, Youre doing a great job adding detail to your maps. Now I want you to think about one more thing while you map. I want you to think about your favorite place on the playground, the place that you like better than any other place. It could be a place that you always play in, or a place that you wish you could play in, or just a place that you really like. I also want you to think of your least favorite place on the playground. This is a place that is scary, or dangerous, or boring. Make sure that your places are inside the fence of the playground so that we can see it on our maps. You need to pick one of each, one favorite and one least favorite, and mark it with a smiley face for the favorite place and a sad face for the least favorite place on your map. Im going to give you five more minutes; during this time you should be marking your special places and adding some last things to your maps. Give them five more minutes, then take them inside. Give them five more minutes once inside to finish adding details to their maps. Gather them inside in the meeting area with their maps and have a discussion about the exercise. Ask them what they noticed that they hadnt noticed before, whether it was easy or hard to think of favorite and least favorite places, what places were the easiest to place on the map and which were the hardest, and whether anything was different from the way they had remembered it before. Take some students maps and put them on the board with magnets. Ask students to point out differences between the maps; talk about how each persons map is different because different things are important to them. Each person sees the playground differently and their map is like a picture of how they see the playground. We can look at someones map and tell from it which are the parts that are most important to them.

Lesson 3: Human-Environment Interaction Tell students to bring their maps to the meeting area. Put an enlarged copy of your map on the board. Explain that were going to talk about our favorite and least favorite places. I know you all have your smiley face and your sad face on your paper, and that tells us where your favorite and least favorite places are. But what if I wanted to know where the class favorite places are? How could I find that out? Guide them to the idea of putting their places up on the big map. Call students up two at a time and give them a green sticker to put on their favorite place and a red one for their least favorite. Explain before you start that since everyone added different things to their maps, my map is different from theirs, so they have to just do their best at finding where their sticker goes. Once all the stickers are up, have a conversation about the data. Are there any patterns? What are they? Why might there be patterns, or why not? Lead them to thinking about how what is in a certain place affects how many children play there. If there was concrete instead of grass on the soccer field, would you still play there? What if there was a water park instead of the basketball court? Would that change your favorite place? So we know that our favorite and least favorite places have to do with the things that are in those places. But the things that are in those places also have to do with who plays there. If every single kid at Franklin only played on the soccer field for all of recess, what would happen to the grass? If everybody tried to use the swings at the same time, what would happen? So what we do makes a difference in what happens to the playground. Can you give me an example of another way we can affect the playground? What about another way the playground affects us? So next time youre on the playground, you can think about how what you do affects the playground and what is on the playground affects what you do.