Mapping Your Backyard

Posted by Jimmie | 0 comments

For some outdoor fun that incorporates math and geography, map your backyard! Even if you don’t have a yard, you can still map some outdoor spot. We live in an apartment, so we mapped our central garden area that has sidewalks, landscaped plants, and a turtle pool. (If the summer heat is truly oppressive, stay indoors and map your home instead.)

First, talk about ways to measure your yard. You could certainly use a measuring tape to do it, or you could use a tool that you always have available – your legs. Teach your children how to measure distance with paces, taking normal steps –no baby steps or super huge ones. Now show your children some graph paper and explain how each square on the graph paper can indicate one pace. With this method, each child’s map will be unique – measured in his own paces. And using the grid makes it easy to draw the map!

Now, let them pace the yard, making notes of how long each side is. Come back inside (enjoy the air conditioning!) and make some sketches on your graph paper. If your paper doesn’t have enough squares, just tape or glue pages together to make your map bigger. After the outline is marked, consider what kinds of things to add: the house, a sidewalk, trees, a bird feeder, ditches, the driveway, a swing set, etc. Go back outdoors and use paces to measure the locations of those items. Sketch them onto your map, using an aerial view. Use words to label them too. This can be as detailed as you like.

Other ideas for your map

• N-S-E-W directions (you may need a compass for this)
• streets or roads bordering your yard (be sure to use correct capitalization)
• names of plants, trees, and wildlife – elm tree, pine tree, irises, honeysuckle, anthill, wasp nest, etc.

If you suspect your children may have trouble visualizing an aerial view, you can introduce this mapping project with toys. Give your children some blocks and some small animal or people figures. Ask them to make a house with several rooms and a fenced in yard. Add furniture, trees, and whatever else your imagination dreams up. Now talk about how the home looks to you from up high, looking down versus how it looks to the toys (pretend they can see). Now imagine that you are hovering up above your own home. How does it look? That aerial perspective is what you want to achieve in the mapping activity.

Jimmie is a former public school teacher turned homeschooling stay-at-home-mom. A sense of humor, faith, and creativity keep her “pressing on” in her unique situation — living and traveling abroad with an only child in a bilingual environment. Visit her blog at Jimmie’s Collage.