This project introduced Kindergarteners to exploration, observation, mapping, multiple perspectives, critique, and collaboration.  Students took observation walks around our immediate community, a village of seven charter schools within a residential neighborhood.  They created draft maps of their classrooms and campus, and drew pictures from their observations from varying perspectives.  One of their final products was to create three dimensional maps of our campus which were installed in each of our schools to guide our many visitors. To create these maps, children worked collaboratively in groups, and gave and received critique, with each group contributing to a larger whole product.

Teacher Reflection:

This was a hard project!  The students had to use a lot of perseverance and grit to complete it.  It was their first experience with critique.The children gained a great deal of spatial awareness by mapping things from multiple perspectives. Often mapping is introduced when children are older, but Kindergarten is a good time to do it because that is when the neural connections for visual processing are developing. They also learned how people use maps in the real world.

Student Reflections:

Mapping can take you to a lot of places.

—Arielle

Explorers do stuff in a kind way.

—Zynen

Mapping is about being precise.

—Aiden

My favorite part was making the 3D map.

—Athaniel

The hardest part about mapping was finishing all the drafts.

—Chiyo

To learn more about this project and others, visit
http://www.hightechhigh.org/schools/HTEX/?show=projects