MAP READING SERIES PART TWO: Preparing to Teach a General Overview of a World Map by Marilyn Buehrer, Teacher

To teach a general overview of a world map, the materials needed by the students are:

• Globe (compare/contrast to a world map)
• Maps (world, North American continent, United States, state, and city)
• Blank sheets of drawing paper
• Pencils and crayons

The classroom Bulletin Board should have these maps:

• the world
• the North American continent
• the United States
• their state
• their city
• a compass rose labeled with the cardinal directions.

Add the following vocabulary words and definitions to the bulletin board:

• Map: a drawing that tells you about a place.
• Legend or Key: explains what the symbols of the map stand for.
• Symbol: small drawings on a map that indicate what is in that place.
• Landmark: something that is easy to find like a mountain or building.
• Route: a path or road that you will travel.
• Compass Rose: a symbol that always shows north and most often also includes south, east, and west.
• Globe: the Earth represented on a sphere.
• Cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west.
• Contiguous: sharing boundaries. The 48 states are contiguous.

Part Three will give the teaching instructions.

Marilyn Buehrer was a public-school English teacher in Washington, California, and Arizona, a national motivational speaker and educator to home-schoolers for nearly a decade, as well as a workshop speaker at home school conventions nationwide and at public middle school consortia in Arizona.  She is the developer of Lyric Power Publishing’s comprehensive Workbooks and Activity Sheets.

A wonderful aid to map reading skills and the ability to find your place is Lyric Power Publishing’s comprehensive supplemental workbook My Book on Directions and Prepositions of Place.