Compass and map skills

In my son's Halloween bucket he got a toy compass. He was trying to play with it and asked my husband how it worked. He said he would teach him how to use a real compass. This just reminded me of how important map skills are and how few of us use and teach these to our children. We all own a GPS system and get around that way. I know if I had to find an address without a GPS or step by step directions from the internet I would get horribly lost.

I started looking for ways to teach my kids about maps and compasses and found a couple of cool sites. The first is an outside activity that is for older kids. I would say 10 and up and most definitely needs some pre teaching. It's advanced. It comes from Scoutorama.com This is a game to help kids learn how to use a compass. You input the distances you want them to go and if you want it to be in miles, feet, meters, or even light years. How you want them to get there and how many cards you want them to follow. The program then creates a route for them to follow that will take them in a big triangle so they will end up where they started. Here's the link. It sounded like a fun game but not something I can do with my kids yet and I like to help them learn about what they are interested in when they ask questions about it. They are so much more teachable that way.

Here's the second game, well informational site I found. This site MapZone is a great place to start learning about maps.

You can click on different things in the room to get to different activities. The DVD player lets you take quizzes on what you have learned. Once you finish a quiz you play a game.

( I don't know why it just started underlining everything I type. Sorry)

The Books offer references and definitions map terms. I only saw 2 terms so I wonder if they add new ones each week. The definitions are kid friendly and helpful. There are even videos to help them see what it means.

Map symbols are important to know. This section teaches you all about them, then there is a quiz in the quiz section that you can take to see what you know.

This was a neat site. I really liked how colorful it was and helpful. I also enjoyed exploring the teacher and parent zones for other ideas on how to teach map skills.