Learning With Little Man in the Map: Part 2

I was recently given The Little Man in the Map by E. Andrew Martonyi for review at The Curriculum Choice and my kids are loving it! This is, by far, the best strategy I have seen to help kids learn how to recognize the States on a map. I am planning to share with you our learning and progression as we explore United States geography with MIM (Man In the Map) and this is part 2. We hope to share with you a video of us recognizing all of the States at the end of our unit with this awesome book.

To see Part 1, please visit this link.

First, I want to say that if you are planning to teach U.S. Geography this year, please run by Target and check out their Dollar Spot. I got these things yesterday:

Now for this weeks activities. I want to mention that The Little Man in the Map is just a story book. These activities do not come with the book and this is not a "curriculum." Our homeschool is using this book as the foundation for our U.S. Geography curriculum and this book is helping the Snails gain the understanding that the U.S. map looks like a puzzle and each state has its very own shape. Our goal is to be able to recognize all of the states without any context clues (hints).

Stringy States

First, I printed state outline maps from here. Then, we used string to "trace" the outline of the state. This is going to be awesome when I get some Wikki Stix.


Relief Maps

For this activity, I placed the state map in a sheet protector (I don't have a laminator) and the Snails used playdough to map the shape of the state.

State Rubbings

For this activity, I drew the shape on a piece of sand paper and cut it out to make rubbings.

If you have been following since Part 1, I want to mention that the Snails are still on the first 5 states but are beginning to retain the states from memory now. The map is near our kitchen table so we play games with the map during meal times. I am very surprised by Little Snail, who is 3. She is a Geography Genius! Follow along next week as our Little Man in the Map series continues. It's definitely going to be lots of fun!

If you are joining us in this study, you can get your own The Little Man in the Map autographed by the author! Visit Mr. Martonyi's site to get your map and book today.