It’s Map Time: Using a Map with Young Learners
I was excited to see a tweet today from an ESL teacher in Iowa (@sturgeonesl) who is going to try using Sprout English materials with her young ELLs.
I immediately visited Ms. Libby’s blog and read a post about how she’s setting up her very first classroom. In her post, there are pictures of bookshelves, a calendar, and a map. Ms. Libby wrote:
“My roommate let me borrow this large map for my room. While right now I’m not planning on really doing anything with the map, I think it’s a good thing to showcase in an ELL room. And who knows, maybe it will come in handy later this year.”
Kindergarten teachers often have a central focal point for taking attendance and doing a morning or afternoon review. Young kids appreciate the routine, and teachers often use the time to review basics such as weather, numbers, and letters. A world map can be a handy thing to have on hand for morning or afternoon circle time. Maps are big, colorful, and full of things to explore! They are also very useful for getting-to-know-you activities, so it’s a great idea to put one in your class at the beginning of a new year. If you teach kindergarten, your students may get a kick out of the idea that instead of “nap time”, they now have “map time”.
Here are 7 things to do with a Map in your YL Classroom:
Introduce and Review Colors – Choose a colorful map for your young learner classroom. Point to different places on the map to review colors with your students on a daily basis. When you are reviewing colors your students will undoubtedly learn some geography. Point to Canada and say, “What color is Canada on this map?” Encourage your students to say, “Canada is green.” Then you can point to another country and ask another question: “Is the United States green?” Encourage your students to respond in a full sentence: “No the United States is pink.” Talk about why there is so much blue on the map.
Introduce People and Places – Get some plain stickers (dots or squares) and have each student place one or two on the map to mark people they know who live in different countries. This is a fun getting-to-know-you activity. If your students don’t know people in other countries, think of some famous people they might know, or tell them about people you know in other countries. Bring in some pictures of your friends or family members who live in different places. Eventually, you can introduce nouns and adjectives related to people around the world. “Ms. Tara’s Uncle George is from France. He is French. He speaks French.”
Discuss Seasons and Clothing – Young learners (and people of all ages) love to talk about seasons and weather. Every morning you probably have a little chat about the weather in your classroom. In some countries, this can get a bit repetitive during the long winter months. Why not talk about the seasons in other countries as well? Use the map to point to a country on the other side of the world. Talk about what people are doing and wearing in Africa and in Russia. “What season is it for Allie’s grandma?”
Learn Directions – Help your students learn how to use the points of a compass: North, East, South, West. You can teach them a fun mnemonic for remembering these words, such as the classic “Never, Eat, Shredded, Wheat”. (Invite your students to make up one that makes sense to them. They probably don’t eat shredded wheat, anyway.) Practice using directions in a sentence. You can do this out loud and on the board. “Iraq is _______ of Iran. Canada is __________ of the US.” It is also useful to teach your students some of the basic directions in your school’s city or town.
Review Letters – Invite a student (or pair) of the day up to the map to find a bunch of countries that start with the letter A! Choose a new letter each day, and work your way through the alphabet and across the map.
Count Places – Big maps are useful for counting out loud. “How many provinces are there in Canada? How many countries are there in Europe? How many oceans are there in the world?”
Tricky Word Challenge – When my daughter was just learning to talk she became obsessed with the globe at our local library. She’d point to places on the globe, and I’d read out the closest word. Despite her young age, one of her favorite words to say was “Kazakhstan”. Each week, invite one of your students to find a place with a tricky name. Learn the word together as a class. Review past tricky words over the year, so that the kids don’t forget. Your little people will feel really smart when they master the names of tricky places and can point these out on a map or globe to their family members.
Did you sign up for 20 free lessons from Sprout English? Try our FREE “I’m from Canada” (present simple dialogues) sample lesson in the Conversation Station section. If you like our free samples, subscribe to Sprout English to have access to all of our materials. Then check out the Games Room and print out our Countries Bingo game.
Pointer sticks are useful when you use a map or other large visual with ELLs. Does anyone have any fun ideas for creating a cool or original pointer stick? Share your ideas in the comments below. And don’t forget to follow Ms. Libby and her blog to see how her first year is going.
See you next week! ~ Tara
