Introduction of Maps

Seefeldt (1997) suggests the following three ways to introduce maps to preschool and primary children in a way that is developmentally appropriate:

1. Survey the children. Discover your students’ level of prerequisite knowledge by showing them a simple map of your city and asking them if they know what it is. Take note of which children seem completely baffled by it and which ones are able to comment appropriately about the map you are showing them. This will give you an idea of the extent of their knowledge and suggest appropriate ways to extend it.
2. Use firsthand experiences. It is important to relate abstract map concepts to children’s interests and experiences in order to make them more concrete. One way to do this is by having children make simple maps for field trips or walks around the neighborhood so they relate directly to their own lives and experiences within their natural setting.
3. Develop concepts. Young children cannot comprehend maps until they understand some basic concepts including representation, symbolization, perspective, and scale.

• Representation means that children know that one thing represents something else. Toddlers may begin to develop an understanding of representation when they start using blocks or Legos to create houses or stores to drive their toy cars around. Appropriate mapping materials for preschool-age children may include three-dimensional objects like blocks, boxes, sticks, or dollhouses. Paper cutouts of houses, schools, libraries, and other familiar buildings can be used to create maps as a child’s understanding of representation continues to develop.
• Symbolization is the concept that a symbol represents a real thing. Using pictures of what children want to include on their map is typically best at first, but as their understanding develops, they can use more abstract symbols. For example, a red triangle could be placed on the map to symbolize every house, a blue square to symbolize each store/building, and so on. It is also important to explain how color is used to symbolize various things when creating or looking at maps. Blue typically indicates a body of water, while green and brown are used to indicate land, and so on.
• Perspective on a typical map is a “bird’s-eye view.” Children can begin to gain perspective when they stand on something like their desk or chair and look down on their map to get a sense about where things are located in relation to one another.
• Scale refers to the proportionate size of various things found on a map, such as roads, buildings, city blocks, bodies of water, and open spaces such as parks, as well as their distances from each other. This is a difficult concept to explain to young children. You can use photos of the children with various objects to demonstrate that the real objects are much larger than the representations of them in a photo, but an absolute understanding of scale should not be expected until they are quite a bit older.