“Young Cartographers” Activity

I am always trying to find new ways to interact with my son and make our time together fun, interesting and educational. This type of interaction does not come natural to me, and I am always struggling to find activities that interest him and allows me to use my natural talents.

I hope that other parents can find some inspiration from these posts as other bloggers have inspired me.

"Young Cartographers" Activities

Objectives

1) Choose a location that is well known to you and your children, then have the child or children draw, colour and label the map.

2) Let them use their imagination to populate the map with drawings, figures and stickers.

3) Create a map that can be used both as a play set and a stage for storytelling.

4) Draw on a child's visual and creative abilities to discuss the importance of the points of interest on the map.

Skills Used

Map creation uses many skills including spatial relation, memory, and interpretation.

Choose a location for your map

The location should be a place that your child recognizes and is able to visualize.

Examples of these can include your home, a park, zoo, safari, school or neighbourhood.

Remember to ask your child questions as you move through the map, such as:

1. What animal lives here?

2. What is the colour of that house?

3. Which room is your playroom?

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Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

One of my favourite TED talks of all time, very inspiring

Chores

Picture by Kristopher VolkmanCombine career changes, complicated renovations to the house and sprinkle in a brother-in-law-turned-renter into the mix, and you have a recipe for chaos. My house was disorganized, and trying to get the family to organize it and keep it tidy was a losing battle.

Unable to come up with a solution to our problem, I turned to the well reviewed “Organizing from the Inside Out” by Julie Morgenstern for advice.

The audio book was a quick listen but powerful in its message. Morgenstern bases her organizational system on one all Kindergarten classroom use. In the classroom, every activity has its defined place and all objects related to that activity have to be stored in that area. Her system worked to get my house organized, but I need a way to maintain the organization and get people to complete the chores needed to accomplish this goal.  Consequently, I came up with an activity inspired by the power and simplicity of Morgenstern’s system.

Like motivating a grade school class, I needed to break through the diversity of the personalities doing the work by integrating teamwork, fairness in the distribution of the chores and make the activity fun and interactive.

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Lifestyles Changes - Food

My family has fallen into a dietary rut. We try our best to cook nutritious meals at home; but lately we are eating more and more processed meals and ordering fast food. We buy vegetables and fruits, but much of the time they go to waste. It is a cycle I have experienced before and promised myself to avoid.

I was overweight in my 20′s, I ate too much sugar, not enough vegetables, no whole grains and everything I ingested was processed. I did not want to pass on these lifestyle traits to my son.

With this in mind, my family is trying to institute some lifestyle changes to promote healthier eating.

1. Create a fixed food budget, and keep it on the low side.

Pay extra for quality ingredients and avoid the cheaper processed meals.

High budget shopping usually ends up with large amounts of groceries that are unhealthy and never get used. Pre-cooked foods and processed meals are convenient, unhealthy, and expensive.

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