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.

Creating your Neverland Model

To help your child be prepared for this lesson, you will want to have lots of maps available for taking a look at before you begin.  In fact, I suggest having the maps lying around for a few days before and after this lesson in such a way they are easy for your child to access.  In particular, maps showing islands or whole continents will be most exemplary.

Other Materials:

clay or dough that won't dry out.
Airtight container with lid and stiff sides.
sculpting tools (optional - even toothpicks can be handy for the purpose though)
Sketch paper.
Dry erase crayons or markers.
A Hard and clear surface (I have a Plexiglas clipboard, but any surface the child can see through will do).
Overhead projector transparency sheet.

Make sure to point out the legend on the maps you are looking at for examples as well as the thought that a map is made in such a way as to give the user of the map a view as though one is flying right over the land and looking down on it.  Then, using clay or playdough, you'll want to actually mold an Island.  This one is your example.  While molding your own version of Neverland, show your child how to shape the dough so it makes beaches, hills, cliffs, plateaus, mountains, peninsulas, bays and lagoons.  If you want to do the landforms extension, now is the time to discuss the different landforms you want your child to learn.

It is also probably a good idea to have a "brainstorming session".  For this session, simply list all the things a good Neverland must have in the eyes of your child.  Are there fairy cities?  Should there be a pirate ship anchored in a cove?  Does your child's Neverland have animals from our world or only magical ones?  Which kinds of animals from our world?  Polar Bears, Pandas, Grizzlies or no bears at all?  Which kinds of magical ones?  Unicorns? Dragons? Wyverns? Wangdoodles?  Are there great big cities anywhere or is it mostly wild lands?  For any of the animals that exist, the child will need to incorporate the appropriate type of habitat for that animal into their plans.

If you plan on skipping the topographical portion of this activity, you'll want to read Chapter Four, while your child draws his or her island and move on to Making your Neverland Coastline Map.

While you read Chapter Four, your child can work on sculpting his or her Neverland.

When the clay model is completed, it is time to learn to "trace" its coastline. 

Place a piece of Plexiglas or other clear and hard surface over the top of the container the Island was built in.  Hand over a transparency and the thinnest dry erase marker you can find.  Start by tracing the island while looking at the tracing surface at a significant angle - 45 degrees should work nicely.  Show your child how looking at an angle distorted the map.  Erase the transparency and then have your child trace the coastline carefully again, this time looking directly over the center of the island.  This is also a tougher task than it appears so be patient and if a few tries are needed, just know your child is practicing his or her fine motor skills.  Particularly if you have a very young child (third grade or younger) if this is a struggle and becoming overly frustrating, "trace" the coastline together with both of you holding the pen.

For very young kids that will not also be creating the topographical map, just letting them sketch the outline of their island will suffice, but if you plan on doing topography as well, your child will need to practice tracing the coastline more than once  to get the coastline down in a precise manner.  You will want two copies of this coastline map.  One for the activity, Making your Neverland Coastline Map, and one to use in continuting with the Topographical step.

For the first Post in the Neverland Unit Series; Click Here.  

 Landforms Extension:

In order to use this opportunity to expand your child's vocabulary, introduce your child to a variety of landforms.  A few are already listed above but you might add, alluvial plains or deltas, an isthmus, sand bar or spit, reef, atoll, haystack islands, tombolos or tied islands, valleys, canyons, any number of other landforms you might frequently encounter where you live.

Here Alice is looking up different types of landforms

Make sure to take a look at what each land form looks like in photos or pictures of the land form itself as well as how it is mapped out on more than one example from your atlas or map samples you have out for the project.  Then give your child a list of landforms that must be included on his or her Neverland and encourage your child to start molding.  This task is tougher than you might think, so I suggest molding alongside your sweetie pie and if actually forming the clay into a particular land form is tougher than you thought it would be you can problem solve together.

NatGeo Land Form Education Resources

Buttons Galore: 35 Cool Things to Do with Buttons

I have about a gazillion buttons that I've used with Alice for math manipulative's for sorting, and addition and subtraction, but I thought what will I do with these when she doesn't need them any more?  So, I started collecting button craft ideas.  I thought it would be really fun to do an article about buttons so, here are 35 different things to do with buttons:

Math and Science Skills: 

I've already mentioned this use, but they really ARE great for so many math and science skills and activities.

1. Sorting and Classifying Practice (important skill in math and science):  with your toddler (either use giant buttons like those above or be sure to wait until they are no longer putting everything in their mouths), use buttons to practice sorting by color, shape, size, number of button holes or any other such characteristic.
2. Graphing (important skill in math and science): Grab a bag of buttons and determine what is the "most" in terms of one characteristic such as shape or color in your bag by creating a physical bar graph.  The actual activity would operate a lot like the "Taste the Rainbow" activity.
3. Counting:  Count the buttons.  Count by ones, fives, tens or even threes.
4. Adding: give a group of buttons (such as five buttons) and then say, "how many will you have if I give you three more".  (Or the reverse, subtracting by taking away).
5. Multiplying:  Sort out "groups of" and then multiply.  For example, have your child sort out five groups of five buttons and then figure out how many total buttons he or she has.  (Or the Reverse, dividing:  Give your kid a set number of buttons - say, 25 - and ask, if there were five of us and we divided the buttons equally, how many would we each get?)
6. Telling Time: Make this cool clock and use it to practice telling time.  Use small enough buttons and you can put 12 buttons where the 12 would go, one giant button where the one should be and six medium sized buttons where the six should be.  Here is a How To Link, but there are a number of versions online if you would prefer something a little more whimsical.

Language Skills:

1. Create Letters out of buttons:  You can do this together, print a large letter on a single sheet of paper and work together to fit as many buttons onto the letter as you can.  Glue them if you want to make your work a permanent piece of artwork.  You may choose to do this with a special letter such as your child's first letter of their own name or the first letter of the family name.
2. Name Recognition:  Do the above activity but for the child's name and then use it as a plaque on their bedroom door or wall as a special piece of artwork you did together.  You can even buy separate wooden, or paper mache'd letters for this at your local craft store.
3. Do a button scavenger hunt and give "hints" to your toddler using directional words.  to the Right, to the Left, Under the chair, Up high, Down low. . .
4. Adjectives: Practice colors with the youngest ones, but you can also talk about bright, light, dark etc. by describing various buttons together.

Physical Coordination:

1. Buttons are a wonderful thing to use to practice the pincer grasp, scooping and the use of tongs with your toddler.
2. Make a button necklace.  This woman copied a $70 designer necklace and wrote a blog about how she did it, but you don't even have to get that fancy.  Stringing items is an important skill we worked on a lot with our preschoolers, it takes an amazing amount of coordination.  Give them some string and some buttons and just let them have fun with it.
3. Use buttons as you would stamps for painting - practice picking them up even in the slippery paint.
4. Use buttons in your sensory tub - have lots of sizes for this one, tongs and scoops
5. Stack the buttons - how high a tower can your child make stacking buttons?  Use flat or concave buttons to make it easier and less frustrating for the particularly young.

Attach Them To Other Things to "Upcycle" The Items:

Not all of these activities are necessarily for your kids.  Maybe you'll think they're pretty cool for you too.

1. Cover a purse or bag in buttons the "cute" way.  (This is a baby doll diaper bag I made for Alice a few years back - notice the button with Humpty Dumpty?)  The picture doesn't show off the bag in the best way, but I chose mostly pinks and bright greens to randomly scatter all over the bag.  Some of the button are also heart shaped and it looks really sweet.
2. Cover a purse of bag the "sophisticated" way.  (I found this online.  Sorry, it is just an image, there is no tutorial for it, but I bet someone out there could make a pretty nice one of these).
3. Glue to the end of old or plain hair clips to make them a little cuter or dressier
4. Glue to the back of a children's chair decoratively.
5. Make button rings, but gluing one button, or a series of stacked buttons to a plastic ring.
6. Make designer desk supplies by attaching buttons to one end of paper clips, clothespins (use like you would binder clips) and on top of a rock to make a paper weight (great father's day gift craft), you could also attach them around the edges of a bulletin board or picture frame.
7. Attach to a lampshade decoratively to make a plain old bargain basement shade more decorative. 
8. String a bunch of buttons onto ribbons and hang in a doorway (without a door)  as a "cool" accessory in a child's space.

Make Your Own "Eye Spy"

1. Photograph a pile of buttons and make your own "eye spy" by then picking out a number of the individual buttons (that are distinguishable from the others) and creating a picture list of buttons for your kids to find in the picture of ALL the buttons.  The list might also include things like, "find 10 buttons shaped like stars"

Do Some Button Art

1. Use buttons in a collage
2. Use buttons as though they are mosaic tiles (see right)
3. Use buttons as a media for "sculpture" (Check out the button pendents shown below.  I'm really sorry I couldn't find a tutorial on this either, it is not an activity I've done, but when I saw these, I thought they were SUPER COOL.  You can do similar things stacking progressively smaller green buttons to make "Christmas Trees" too.

4.  Use buttons to accentuate other things in artwork.  For example, draw a bare, or "winter" tree and add buttons to the branches to look like fruits, flowers or leaves.  

5.  Do a treatment like you did with the letters to a simple line drawing to make a piece of art.  Call it your button silhouette.  

Make Button Wreaths

Need I say more?  There are a few ways to make these though.  Here are some more pics.

1.  The wreath ornament:  Link

2.  Wrapped Wreath with Buttons:  Get a foam circle wreath form and wrap it with a natural looking 

      material such as hemp yarn.  Carefully hot glue a variety of buttons on the wreath.

3.  Explosion of buttons wreath: Obviously, this one was not done by a child, but if you start with a 

     paper plate with its center removed and let them glue away, your child can easily do this.  Alice 

     made one that is probably buried in the Christmas Box at the moment, out of all the green buttons 

     she could find one year and then pointed to where she wanted me to add a smattering of yellow ones

    (for stars and ornaments) with hot glue on top of the green ones she had glued on.  For this method, 

     use a paper plate that is the general button color you are using, or paint a white one first, because the

     plate will show through when a kid does it.

4.  Simple Row Wreath:  Do as picture shows, flip, tie ends in a pretty bow.  Voila!

Button Flowers: 

Great Mother's Day Version: Careful with the wire.

  

Cute on top of a wrapped gift