Sharing A Koala's World with a First Grade Class
I love maps. As a child, on long car trips, I followed the road maps we got at gas stations, noting the distance between towns and calculating how long it would take us to get to the next one. And I loved the maps in my geography books at school, locating far away places that I hoped to travel to someday. In the books that I write, if there is the possibility of including a map, I always like to do so. In the Caroline Arnold’s Animals series, published by Picture Window Books, a map showing where each animal lives is part of the back matter of each book. A map of Australia in A Koala’s World can be seen above. The challenge in A Polar Bear’s World and A Walrus’s World was that the maps had to be a polar view, which is unfamiliar to many children.My book, The Geography Book: Activities for Exploring, Mapping, and Enjoying Your World, is filled with projects for children including twelve activities that help them learn about maps. You can have fun making a balloon globe, a contour potato and other projects.