Second Grade Map Project Ideas

Here you will find a variety of map project ideas to correlate with your map skills lesson plans.

Mapping My World

This mapping activity helps children understand where they fit in, in the world. To begin read the story Me on the Map by Joan Sweeny. This will help students become familiar with maps. Then have students cut out eight different colored circles, each circle should progressively get bigger than the first. Attach all circles together with a keychain circle holder, or use a hole punch and a piece of string to attach all of the circles together. Use the following directions to complete the rest of this activity.

1. On the first smallest circle - A picture of the student
2. On the second, next biggest circle - A picture of the students' house (or bedroom)
3. On the third circle - A picture of the students' street
4. On the fourth circle - A picture of the town
5. On the fifth circle - A picture of the state
6. On the sixth circle - A picture of the country
7. On the seventh circle - A picture of the continent
8. On the eight circle - A picture of the world.

Another way to show students how they fit into the world is to take the concept above and use clay. Each layer of clay represents something in their world.

Salt Dough Map

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Have students create a salt map of their state. To begin first print out the state map. Yourchildlearnsmaps is a great site to use for this, you might have to tape the map together though. Next, tape the map to the cardboard then trace the outline of the map. Remove the paper and create the salt mixture and place it on the cardboard. For an extension activity, students can paint specific landforms on their maps and draw a map key.

Body Map

A fun way to reinforce cardinal directions is for students to create a body map. Partner students together and have each person take turns tracing the body of their partner. Once students have traced each other then they must place the correct cardinal directions on their own body maps. Students can color and add details to their body maps as they wish.

Discovering a New Island

This activity is a great way for students to practice mapping skills. Ask students to imagine that they have just discovered an island and they are the first person to have ever seen this place. Their job is to draw a map of this place. Use the following directions to complete this activity.

• Create an imaginary island. If you like hockey create a "Sabre Island" if you like Kittens create a "Kitty Island." Be creative.

Your map should include:

• A map key with symbols
• A compass rose
• 3 man-made features ( a house, building, etc)
• 3 natural landscape features ( a mountain, water, volcano, etc.)
• A title on the top of the page

Land-Form Dinosaur

This activity is perfect to review or assess landforms. To begin have students draw a dinosaur with three humps, a tail, and a head. Plus, a sun and grass. Or, you can provide them with an outline and just have them fill in the words. To see a picture of what this looks like visit this Pinterest page. Next, have students find and label the following things:

• island
• plain
• lake
• river
• mountain
• valley
• bay
• peninsula

Students can then color the rest of the picture after it is labeled.

Mapping Symbols

This cute mapping project was found on Pinterest to help reinforce mapping skills. It is called "Barefoot Island." Students draw a foot with the five circles for the toes and label the foot 10-15 symbols that would typically be found on a map. Symbols such as school, post office, pond, etc. Students must also complete a map key and compass rose to accompany their island.