I told them that they would be doing some free drawing, but that I would be giving them a challenge to complete. The title of the challenge was The Map to Anywhere. I showed the students examples of maps that I found on the internet and in books that people had drawn. I picked maps that had lots of pictures drawn on them so that I was emphasizing how the map they were making was a piece of art.
Finally, I showed them the example that I had made for class. It was called Disney Carrot. The idea came from my daughter, who loves bunnies. When she was about 3 years old, she had this idea that Disneyland would be so much better if it was all about a bunny instead of a mouse. She created a whole imaginary land called Disney Carrot and talked about it all the time. I decided to make her a map of Disney Carrot and this is what it looked like:
The students then created their own Maps to Anywhere. I told them that they could do anything they wanted -- treasure maps, maps of places they'd visited, maps of their homes...anything. But I also emphasized that their maps would be so detailed that I would be able to look at them and they could tell me everything I needed to know about the place I was visiting on their map. I was amazed at all the different things they did! Some great examples were:
- maps of their favourite video games (a really big hit with the boys)
- maps of places they wish they could visit
- two kids in separate classes did maps of the inside of their minds
- on their own, some of the students pushed their papers together to make one big map that was joined together
- maps of favourite ski hills
- Candyland, Disney Cucumber, Unicornopolis
- maps to buried treasure
I had a great time walking around and discussing the maps with the students. It turned out to be one of my favourite lessons!
I hope you will try it and let me know how it goes!
