On a recent trip to Philadelphia to visit my sister, my daughter, Ava, asked "Are we still in Lititz?" We had been driving for an hour and half and the city skyline was quickly approaching. I wondered how she could think that we were still in our hometown. With young children, I’m learning, there is a disconnect between places. I thought that the long car ride would indicate that Lititz and Philadelphia were far apart, but it’s not travel time and not even looking at a map. For young children, "sense of place" plays a big factor in how they perceive the world and relate what they learn to their own world.  Most perceptions are based on their relationship to home.

As homeschoolers, you have the opportunity to relate your studies to your children’s world, building a better understanding and application of the formal subjects. I found this map coloring activity online. It’s simple and you can use as much or as little detail as you want, depending on the age of the your child. Here are the steps:

• Ask your child to make a list of places they like to go to in your town (library, hiking trail, mall, etc.)
• Print a detailed map of your town. Google Earth is a fun place to start. Searching for your home or other places on Google Earth can be an activity on its own.
• Find all the places on your child’s list on the printed map. You can either do this for them if they are young, or let older children find them on their own.
• Find creative ways to decorate the map and show the places on their list. Younger children can use stickers, while older children can draw symbols, paint or color in the map.
• You’ll end up (hopefully) with a colorful piece of artwork to remind your children of where they are, home.

Want to further your child’s study of geography? Veritas Press has its own easy-to-teach geography curriculum for grammar school. Check it out HERE!

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By Lexi Detweiler