Making your Neverland Coastline a Map

If you have not already checked out the Unit Resource Page, or the beginning steps, Modeling Your Neverland and Neverland Topography, simply click on their titles to link to these first steps and instructions.

Now that your child has a map of the coastline of his or her Neverland, he or she can fill in the land with landmarks and a variety of habitats.  In an open space on the map you'll want to place a Legend box.  Explain what a legend is and then fill it in with some of the kinds of symbols your child feels is most appropriate for his/her map. 

Encourage your child to include:
Forested Areas, Desert, Grasslands and other types of familiar terrestrial ecosystems,
Streams, Lakes, Rivers and other aquatic/marine ecosystems,
Magical landforms of his or her imagination - perhaps gumdrop fields, or an ice-cream glacier.

A Town or two and a "capitol city" with roads or pathways connecting each of these locations.

For older children, you might want to explicitely guide them into thinking about how the topography effects the likely habitation of the land.  To do this, overlaying their political information on their topographical information might help, but keep the topography lines very light so that they are mostly "covered" by the new map information.  Too many lines of equal darkness can become confusing.

You can see what Alice did in her map above.  You can also see how I gave her a couple of examples of symbols in the legend and helped her with the actual writing of the words in the legend some.

The map you see above is really only a beginning.  Over the top of this, can be added symbols for towns and cities, as well as names for locations right on the map.  To take the final steps, make light pencil lines to create a straight line where-ever a name is needed.  For example, over the central area of the "lagoon" in the middle.  Then have your child give a place name for each location. 

This is a fabulous chance to introduce or review proper nouns versus common nouns.  A lagoon is a common noun, but once it is named "Mermaid Lagoon" it becomes a specific place, similar to "girl" being a common noun but, "insert daughter's name here" (or use boy and a son's name) is a proper noun.  It is your child's job to offer up the proper nouns now for his/her Neverland.

Neverland Topography

To create a topographical map of your Neverland, you will need to have Created a Neverland in the first place.  The directions for doing so are given on the linked article.

Materials:

In addition to the materials used in creating your Neverland, you will need a toothpick or other pointed tool to scratch lines into the dough used for your model, a ruler, and a way to secure the toothpick to the ruler and still be able to move it again.  We used scotch tape and a firm grip.

What to Do:

1. Choose and increment and attach the tooth pick to the ruler at a low increment that makes sense for your child's island (and age).  For example, Alice's Island rose to about two inches and at age six she still struggles with precise fine motor skills so 1/2 inch increments made sense to demonstrate topographical lines on a map, while not over-doing the project.  If she was a little better and precise action with her fingers, I might have had her do 1/4 inch increments.  Likewise, if her island had had little to no relief (was relatively flat) we would have needed smaller increments to give her something to measure. 
2. You can see Alice "scratching out" her one inch increment in the picture below.
3. Trace the scratched lines in much the same way as tracing the coastline of your Neverland.
4. Add a key denoting the elevation line increments and a title stating what the map is depicting.

Once all the Topographical lines are traced, you can make a copy onto a regular piece of paper, or use tracing paper to get the topographical lines transferred onto paper on which your child can color in the rest of his or her map.  If you plan on doing the whole unit, you may want to have at least three copies of the map.  In the picture below, you see Alice tracing her lines of elevation onto her topographical transparency with a Crayola Dry Erase Crayon (not a paid advertisement).

Discuss with your child how the closeness of the lines show steep inclines.  Where there are "steep slopes" or "cliffs" the lines come really close to one another, but where the lines are further apart the land moves like a gentler hill.  Compare this map with some other topographical maps to help your child see a "real" topographical map (Printable online topographical maps) and how it represents important information to those moving around on the land that was mapped.  For example, I suggest having your child pick out the shortest distances to travel up a mountain side and then also find routes that would be the "easiest routes" even if they are longer.  What kind of additional equipment is needed for the shortest route? 

The beginning of the Neverland Unit Article is linked Here.  Don't forget to also have your child make a political/ecological map of his or her Neverland.  For instructions, click here.

Your Child's Neverland

Today I am launching a unit with Alice that uses J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan as a launch point for a unit of study that will include map skills, geographical features, reading and vocabulary, descriptive writing and a little ecology.  I hope the unit will be a lot of fun and that some of my readers might join us on our journey and use the comments to chime in on highlights or challenges encountered during the Unit.  It should be a lot of fun.

Of course, as we read the story, I also had her define important vocabulary words, answer comprehension questions and do some typical Language Arts types of Activities.  There are many different versions of Peter Pan out there now, from the original, to Disney's version rewritten for book form and beyond.  Alice's School recommended an Early reader version, but she preferred an entirely different version of the book for its added complexity.  For that reason, it is difficult to offer helpful guides or even vocabulary lists here, but I will offer a "resources list" with links at the end of the article.  This article will focus more on my intentions for the "map" activities I am adding to the mix.

Objectives:

Students Will: 

• Read, or have read to them, any version of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan that includes the concept of all children having their own Neverland's already created in their own minds.
• Create a political map of their Neverland
• Create a topographical map of their Neverland
• Expand their vocabularies in regard to Geographic Features.
• Identify different types of geographic features such as mountains, mountain chains, island, isthmus, and peninsula.

Materials:

• A copy of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie - multiple adaptations out there are available at different reading levels.  The HarperFestival adaptation: Peter Pan The Original Story (the motion picture event) will work well for a slightly more advanced reader and there is a version adapted by Cathy East Dubowski done by Random House Stepping Stones written at a second grade level.  I'm sure there other adaptations out there that will work equally as well too.
• Clay.
• A piece of plexiglass or other hard and clear surface.
• Lots of graph paper.
• Writing paper.
• Paper on which to sketch.
• Typical classroom supplies such as colored pencils and/or crayons, writing pencils, and rulers.
• An imagination.
• An atlas or other reference for children about maps that will have examples of different types of maps.
• You may decide to use a movie version of Peter Pan at some point during the unit as well.  There are still copies of the original play with Mary Martin available at some libraries and you can find it on Youtube as well (Here is part 1).  Of course there is the animated Disney version and the newer movie from 2003.

Activities:

• Reading the First Chapters.
• Defining your Neverland - an adventure in landforms and mapping the coastline.
• Maps and Map Legends -Turning your coastline into a map.
• Maps and Map Legends - Mapping your Neverland's Topography.

 

Resources for Language Arts Activities:

Wikipedia: Typical Wikipedia Entry with synopsis, history and references to the author and his other works, other works inspired by the book, and additional information.

Book Rags:  Summary, Plot and Character Notes.

eNotes: Short Biography of J.M. Barrie, and links to character, plot, and theme summaries, essays and critiques, and an article about Media adaptations.  Membership is required for full versions of some of the articles, but there sufficient information for basics without as well.

Lit2go: Audio Version

Schvoong: Reviews, summaries and other information as submitted by Schvoong community contributors.  Things to think about.

Themes To Highlight/Research you and your child Can Do:

Then and Now - ask kids to compare:  

• How Barrie depicts life at the Darling house and how life for children of the late 1800's and early 1900's compares to daily life for children now (in your location, or in UK compared to today's UK).
• How people saw Native Americans in the early 1900's compared to how they are seen and understood today.

Historical Societies -

• Life as a Middle Class Society Member in London in 1900
• Native American Life in 1900 - you may need to choose a few representative tribes from different Regions in North America to narrow down your scope.  Make it clear there are multiple life styles that were lived at the time, just as there are multiple life styles lived for any other community in time.
• Pirates from the 1700's- 1800's. 

Aging - The "Classic" aspect of this book and its major theme:

• Some questions to ask:  Why doesn't Peter Want to Grow Up?  What is he afraid of?  What is so bad about being an adult?
• Have your child define Aging.
• Instruct your child to form an "interview" for each of her living grandparents, or other family members that are retired or near-retirement.  Have your child use the interview to discover what growing up was like for them and how they see aging.  Have your child ask you (or another person in mid-life) the same interview questions.  Draw connections between answers by comparing and contrasting.

If you have more wonderful thematic ideas, Please share them in a comment.  I hope this article will act only as a starting point and inspiration for further development.