Ancient Maps by 3rd Grade

I wrote this lesson a couple years ago and I really like it. I know some people who go full choice in their art rooms. Part of me really likes the idea of a choice-based art room, but a larger part thinks that kids really benefit from some guidelines in a project. Just personal preference. I've been working on ways of incorporating more choice within the framework of my projects. I think this lesson gives students a lot of freedom to display their creativity.

Essentially, we look at all kinds of older maps and talk about how they are different than current maps. Hint- they are WAY cooler. They are as much art as they are cartography. Oh, that's another cool part of this project. I get to say "cartography" and "cartographer" all the time. It makes me happy. 

Students then get to design their own map of a fictional place. I let students have pretty much complete freedom in the theme of their maps. Some choose to create maps of video game worlds, some map out locations from a favorite book or tv show, and others just completely freestyle. I ask that they include both water and land, a title, a compass rose, and a map key. Additionally, I ask them to include at least six landforms. Parts of maps are part of the 3rd grade social studies curriculum in Ohio and landforms are in the curriculum for 4th grade. 

I really like the results I get out of the project. It's fun to sit and study the small details that students put into their work. I have learned a couple of things over the years to make the project run a little smoother. Liquid watercolor works very well for painting the water. It's easy to prep and I'm not constantly replacing the blue in my watercolor trays. It's also a lot more consistent in terms of color. I also have students add color to map details with colored pencils. It's just a lot neater than the results I got the first year with watercolor. 

Click here to download my lesson plan!

Click here to download the handout I put together to help students with this project!

Beautiful details from the map above!

Detail of "burned" map edges. Wet on wet watercolor tricks!

Were you wondering what a fairy unicorn princess looks like? Wonder no more!

Great example of a map with mostly land. 

3rd Grade Ancient Maps

Ahoy landlubbers! It be map time at Thomas Elementary. This is the second year I've done this project with 3rd grade and it's a lot of fun and also integrates quite a bit from the social studies curriculum.

We start the project by looking at a lot of old maps. If you haven't seen any of these before, check the Google. They're pretty rad. There are maps of North America that actually show California as an island. Some maps have sea monsters. Many older maps actually have quite a bit of artwork on them simply to make them beautiful to look at. 

We discuss the main parts of a map (a part of the 3rd grade social studies curriculum here in Ohio) and also look at various landforms (a part of the 4th grade curriculum). Students are required to have a certain amount of landforms in their map as well as a title, key, and compass rose. 

My students are each charged with the task of creating a map of a fictional place. Most choose to create their own, but some like to to make maps of places in their favorite book, tv show, or video game. I love to see what they come up with. 

The last part of the project is to crumple the paper several times to make it look old and also "burn" a part of the map using wet on wet black watercolor. I like the burned edges, but I think the crumpling takes something away from the overall project. I probably won't give that as an option next year. 

Click here to see my lesson plan!
Here is the handout that I put together for this lesson. 

Ancient Maps by 3rd Grade

I'm trying really hard to incorporate many new projects into my curriculum this school year. I usually add in a few new lessons, but this year I've come up with quite a few brand new project ideas. This is one of those lessons. 

I'm working on my Master's plus 30 hours, so I've been taking graduate courses. My professional development plan is pretty wide open. Other art teachers reading this know exactly why. We don't just teach art. We teach everything; it just happens to look nice. Over the summer I took a course about maps. I had originally planned to create a pirate map lesson, but I was completely inspired by the artistry of old maps in general. The lesson focus turned into old maps in general, but added in many geography terms such as landforms that my third graders will learn more about next year in their academic classroom. As a bonus, I got to use the word "cartographer" over and over. Words are cool.

Essentially, I asked my students to create a map of an imaginary place. It could be based on a fairy tale or it could have been entirely made up. My students went nuts. I saw maps of fictional lands, video game worlds, cartoon worlds, fairy tale locations and many, many more. The drawing was first done in pencil, then inked with a thin Sharpie. Watercolor washes in limited colors were then added. When the painting was finished, I allowed the students to further age their maps by crumpling them and even burning the edges. Of course I wasn't using open fire in my classroom. The "fire" was simply wet on wet watercolors on torn edges of the maps. 

Click here to see my lesson plan!
Here is the handout that I put together for this lesson.