This is an easy kids geography project that helps teach how we- and our community- fit into the wider world. Gather your art supplies and let’s get started.
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This project is fun to pair with the book “Me on the Map
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Kids Geography Project:
First, gather your materials. You will need construction paper of different colors, crayons or markers, scissors, and glue. We traced different mixing bowls to create the different sized, concentric circles. As the circles get bigger, their pictures show bigger geographic areas.
The circles are labeled with the following titles (English and then Spanish):
My house – Mi casa
My city – Mi ciudad
My state – Mi estado
My country – Mi país
My continent – Mi continente
My planet – Mi planeta
Each circle will be labelled, and then decorated with a representative image.
For “my house,” have them write their address, their city for “my city,” etc until they reach “Earth” for their planet. Because I was doing this project with 4, 6, and 7 year olds, I printed pictures of our state, country, and continent from the internet (Tip: when you want only an outline of a country, type in “France map coloring page“). They drew their house, a scene from our city, and we used a paper plate for the final circle. I showed the kids pictures of the world to come up with “my planet.” Finally, we punched holes in the top and used binder rings (from an office supply store) to assemble the project. My kids presented their projects by reading the titles, and explaining the details to us.
Want the materials for this project?
Find the full printable lesson plan for the “My Place in the World” Project at the Kid World Citizen Teachers Pay Teachers Store!
The lesson plan comes with everything you need to easily incorporate this project into a classroom setting.
Get it now >
I am LOVING your website! So much to learn and do and I can’t wait to do this project (along with others) with my kids!
Thanks Nancy! It is so fun to do these projects with our kids! I love how their little minds soak it up:).
I LOVE this idea!! What a great way to show them all the different places we call home and how they relate to each other. Pure genius!
Thanks Ruthanne! My kids did a similar project at school regarding their “leaders”- Ms. P is my teacher, in charge of my class. Mr. D is the principal, in charge of the whole school. Mr. X is our mayor, in charge of our town, then the governor, and the president. I adapted it to this activity with places because I think they still get confused between city, state, country, etc.
Excellent activity! Exploring our place in the world like this is also very beneficial to students with special needs, particularly ones struggling with organization of time and space.
Thanks Bernadette! I love your web site http://www.bernadettesimpson.com/escapade.html and need to find your book. What a great resource for parents and teachers!
That’s pretty rude. The Internet is full of ideas gleaned from each other. Most people don’t care as its for children and not for adults to get all uppity about it. It’s a cute activity, thank you for posting.
I love this project entirely, but thinking that I will have a few less circles on ours as we live on Norfolk Island, a tiny little island in the middle of the south pacific, no city or state, I guess the nearest continent would be Australia. It might be fun to do it using the traditional Norf’k language too. Next time I work at the local preschool(casual), I will do this and post a photo for you to see our version.
Oooh, please send me a picture and I will post! Also- we would love to showcase Norfolk Island- do you have any activities/recipes/crafts/songs/history you’d like to share;)?
Saw this on Pinterest and clicked on over. We made this craft tonight and it was lots of fun. On the country map my children made hearts on the states that our friends and family live in, it was a great visual. Thanks so much for posting!
That is such a cute idea- I think we might have to do something like that. We have family all over, and it would be such a great visual for the kids to have a better idea where they are. Thanks so much for sharing:).
What a great idea! I will collect what I can as we have an amazing little island filled with interesting history We have had 2 penal settlements (England sent their convicts here in the late 1700’s) then when the convict settlements were abandoned, Queen Victoria gave the island to the desendants of the Mutiny of the Bounty fame. The local dialect is a mixture of old English and Tahitian, it has become a language on its own. A subtropical island full of volcanic rich red soils and interesting plants as well as tropical reefs. I will speak to the local language teacher at school as she has some great craft ideas & songs, the recipes are great too.
oooh, I am so excited! Let’s do a great post about everything!:)
This is awesome! We were just talking, in my teaching team, about kids and their concepts of states vs. countries! This will be a perfect activity to do now, for this year’s kids, and at the beginning of next year!
Yay! Perfect!:)
Here is the link to the Norfolk Island language site, it has online puzzle activities and games using the Norf’k laenwij (language) you can even record yourself speaking norf’k. http://www.norfolklanguage.nlk.nf/
I hope to find a site with all the unique island recipes on, although they are all in some cookbooks available on the website too.
Thank you so much! I have some questions for you- I will email you!:)
please do! Hapy to answer any questions. The quickest email is norfolkislandphotos@gmail.com if you dont already have it. cheers, Cristina
Hi Becky,
I produce videos for a website called Mom’s Homeroom. It is a collaboration between Microsoft and Kellogg’s and our focus is empowering moms with creative ideas and a community that can help them guide their children to academic success.
I came across your site while researching an episode on making boring homework fun. Your ideas are so creative and easy for moms to replicate so I’m interested in finding out a little more about your work and inspiration maybe for an episode on raising globally minded kids?
Contact me if you’d like to talk about it.
Best wishes,
Beth Ruchlin
Absolutely! I will email you right now:).
I love this! My first lesson I ever did with my pre-education observation classes was “Our Place in the World” I hope you don’t mind, I linked to you from my blog at http://www.studentteachingsurvival.blogspot.com!
Thank you so much!
I’m glad you liked it! Thank you for linking up- I love to network with teachers!
I loved this idea and did it with my two younger boys. So cute and a lot of fun! The book Me on the Map goes along perfectly with this activity. Thanks for sharing!
Yay! I’m so glad you liked it! Learning about how we fit into the bigger world is such an important concept for kids. Keep reinforcing it and their budding geography skills will continue to grow:).
Thank you for this great idea! We shared it on our Academic Advancement blog this morning! http://www.academicadvancement.org/1/post/2012/09/my-place-in-the-world.html
Thanks for sharing!:) Spread the love of geography!!!
I was making this with my son, and while I’m cutting out the yellow circle, he says “is that the sun?” Now we are doing the same thing with the solar system and planets! So he can remember what order they go in!!!
That is so cool! I love when our kids help direct the learning:).
Thanks for sharing your idea! Looks great. Have you seen the book Me and my place on the map? It would be a great tie in.
Yes! I saw that book after making the project, so we read it and then revisited our locations:). I need to re-write the post to include that- they go hand in hand!
This is a great idea!!!! I love it and I will certainty do it with my child!
WOW! I like the Idea!! I love those craft my will love this two.
This is a great project. Thank you so much for linking it to the History and Geography Meme.
We tried this and went even further out! We had Solar System, Milky Way and Universe. We added county in there too between city and state.
I love that!!! I need to do it again and add those in!!
Send me a picture if you have one!:)
Thank you so much!!! This is the best project idea I’ve ever seen. It will help me out a lot because I have twins that are doing the same project.
I really love your idea and I am now starting to do this activity with my students. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
I am so glad you like it!!!
Thank you for this wonderful idea – our kids at church just did this activity and thoroughly enjoyed the entire process! 🙂
I am so glad you could use it!
Thanks so much with sharing this idea. I will be using it with our World Cup topic!!
Great idea. Students really love to participate in this project. By this lesson plan, teachers can easily create awareness in their students about globalization.
great idea.!
Hello! I live in China and work in an international school where I have many students from different countries: Netherlands, Finland, India, Japan, Malaysia, America etc… Our unit is “Our Community” and we look at our neighborhood, country and our role as global citizens. I want to do this activity but do I just stick with China or should the children just do their home countries? For some China is more relevant because they’ve been here longer than their home countries and for others they haven’t been in China long and haven’t identified China as their home quite yet-making labels like “My Country” a tad awkward. What approach would you take in this situation? Thank you!
Perhaps you could do China, but have the kids personalize each circle for their individual situation. For example their home (who lives there, or what is important in their home), their neighborhood or school, then the city they are in now, the country they are in now (labelling it simply “China” instead of “my country”). With each circle they could draw a picture or write what they will remember about their time in China, or what is important and significant about each place. Even if they are transient, it might either help them sort of claim their current home, but also could be a nice memory if they move away from China:). I would love to see pictures when you are finished!