Map Homework For Tonight

Today we wrote about our favourite things we have done in swimming since today was the last day. Lots of us were sad that swimming is now over, but a few people were excited that they wouldn't be freezing cold after getting out of the pool anymore. Some things that we wrote about included:
- I thought treading water in the dive tank was hard because you had to keep your head above water
- It was fun going off of the diving board
- The front crawl was fun to learn
- I really liked my teacher because she was nice
- I would like to go swimming again because it was so much fun

This afternoon in social studies we learned about maps. We talked about how maps are drawings or pictures of landscapes or communities. They are usually drawn from a "birds eye view" which means if you were looking down on the area represented in the map. We brainstormed ideas of why we might use maps. Some of our ideas were:
- to help find our way
- to locate something
- for information
- to measure distances
- to show where something begins and ends (boundaries)

We also talked about features that should appear on a map. These features can help you when reading a map. They include:
- Title (what is your map showing?)
- Date (when is your map made?)
- Author (who made the map?)
- Symbols (basic shapes or pictures to show specific features)
- A legend (to explain what the symbols mean)
- Different colours (to show where something begins and ends or land features)
- Directions

Directions are shown on a map through a compass. There are four cardinal directions: North, East, South and West. North will always point up, East will always point right, South will always point down and West will always point left. We came up with a few sayings to remember the cardinal directions:
- Never Eat Slimy Worms
- Never Eat Slimy Waffles
- Never Enter Santa's Workshop

Ms. Binks gave us a special HOMEWORK assignment to complete TONIGHT. Our job is:
- To create a map of our bedrooms (or another room in the house)
- We need to include:
a) a title (what is your map of?)
b) symbols (shapes or pictures that show the main features of your bedroom: windows, doors, bed,          dressers, shelves, closets etc)
c) a legend (this shows the symbol and what the symbol means)

An example map is shown below:

Reminders:
- Both classes have library tomorrow. Please remember to bring back your books
- Picture order forms are due back on Friday
- There is no more swimming