Map Skills with a Holiday Twist

Last week we were reading all about maps and learning about how to use them. I came across a great map making activity by Kindergarten Corps. and I loved how simple it would be to prepare and that the kids would get to create their own maps! She even included a free printable legend. Since the holidays are just around the corner, I knew my students would love this activity but wanted to put a little holiday twist! We made "Christmas Village Maps" by using holiday scrapbook paper, stickers, and foam shapes. My students had a blast and I will definitely be including this activity next year. Go check out Kindergarten Corps post HERE about her activity and check out the pictures below to see how we changed it up for the holidays! 

Keep reading until the end to see what I'm teaching this week! :)

I grabbed the stickers, foam shapes, and washi tape at Michael's craft store. I already had the scrapbook paper on hand so I cut it into small squares (3x3) and cut triangles for the roofs to match. We used washi tape for the lines on the roads...thought that turned out especially cute!

As a class, we decided on 6 things to put on our legends. They chose lake, forest, my house, restaurant, toy store, and streets. We created the legend first and then they got busy creating their maps based off of the legend.

This week, we're reading The Legend of the Poinsettia, which is one of my favorite Christmas books! Most of my students don't know what a poinsettia is and they think its so cool to find out how they came to be...well, at least according to the legend. ;)

I'm using the Legend of the Poinsettia printables from my Sticky Note Holiday pack to work on making predictions and summarizing. I always have my students make a poinsettia out of red construction paper so if I get a chance I'll post about that later this week. You can check out my Sticky Note Holiday pack by clicking on the picture below. I have LOTS printables included in it for several favorite holiday books!