Pin It Maps are seriously cool.
We ordered the Land and Water forms set for my beginner readers, ages 6 and 8; my goodness, the pin map has quickly become a favorite activity.
There is some assembly involved — but there’s no need to be intimidated.
I roped in my sweet hubby to help me tape the labels to the pins then thread the posts and stab the little flags onto the bases. I want to say this set took about 45 mins to assemble.
I was mighty excited. May explain the blur of the photo.
Woohoo!
I have conquered the map. Sail around the world and stick a flag in it. No flag, no country. You can’t have one. That’s the rules I’ve just made up.
Now what’s extra super groovy is the freebies section on the site.
I proceeded to download, cut, laminate, cut again, and make flip books plus three part cards to accompany the maps.
This took considerably longer than 45 mins. This took me several hours over the course of several days.
You may already have landform cards in which you can skip this step. But I was pretty smitten with how the cards came out.
Action shot.
To use, my kids match the flag to the flip book chart we made, then locate via picture the location on the map. We started with just a small handful of water pins at first; these have blue flags while the landforms have yellow flags. The water form pins correspond to blue dots on the map. The landforms have yellow dots — it’s all very well thought out and easy to use for the lower elementary set. There’s a control map that comes with the set as well.
Every few days I’ve added about 5-10 new pins of one color. Not only does this keep the material new and challenging, it sets the kids up for success because there are familiar terms in addition to the new ones; that allows them to learn through repetition. My kids opt to work with these materials daily. It’s not drudgery — it’s all fun, independent, hands on learning. Homeschooling really doesn’t get better than this.
