 |
Have you ever noticed the similarities between road maps and mazes? We have been exploring the connection between the two in our preschool classroom…
We began our day by reading the book Along a Long Road by Frank Viva. This is a simple book with excellent illustrations. The illustrations show a man on a bicycle while the text describes where the man is going: up a hill, through a tunnel, over a bridge, etc…
While reading this book Deborah emphasized the directions, pointing her fingers along the yellow road to demonstrate. The inside cover of the book showed a map. We took a few minutes to look at the map and compared it to a maze, with several ways to reach a destination…
After reading our story, we got out our big cardboard box maze. This maze was fun and easy to make out of a large cardboard box and strong plastic drinking straws. You can read the tutorial for how to make a box maze like this one by clicking here…
The children all gathered around the maze and we asked them all to hold on to a side of the box. In our large group, we explored how the maze worked with a car…
The children worked on maneuvering the car through the maze, lifting it from one side to another to get the car to move. We used directional words that we read about in our book, while working as a team to get the car to the end of the maze. At the end of our maze, I used the straws to create small parking spaces to park the cars…
The children continued to explore our big cardboard box maze all morning. We found that marbles were also fun to play with in the maze…
The use of our cardboard maze was a wonderful way to get the kids working together. It is quite challenging to get a marble or car from one end of the maze to the other when you have to work together. It requires talking to one another, collaborating with one another, going up and going down, and going side to side all at the same time…
The exploration of a maze in a box is wonderful way to promote a wide range of concepts from directional words and language to teamwork!…
Available on Amazon
Links to grow on:
Making our own maps in preschool by Teach Preschool
Making a-maze-ing marble mazes by Teach Preschool
Preschooler activity: A big maze by Hands On: As We Grow
This article is being shared with you by Deborah Stewart of Teach Preschool - Promoting excellence in early childhood education at home and in the preschool classroom!Check out Deborah's new book and order your copy today!
-Teach Preschool on Pinterest
-Teach Preschool on Facebook
-Teach Preschool on Twitter
-Deborah Stewart on Google+ or Teach Preschool G+ Page or Teach Preschool G+ Group
Subscribe to receive the latest Teach Preschool blog posts by email...
Disclosure: Teach Preschool is a participating member in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program
|
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
My class is fascinated with maps right now, so they would love that book! Cool activity.
I love the book, it lends itself to so many different possible ways for expanding into maps and directions and buildings…
I like these activities! Simple but very hands on and active. We once did body mapping (internal organs and all) with paper cutouts similar to your classroom maps. The results were fascinating. Thank you for the helpful links. Sarah
{ 3 trackbacks }