Cartography: The Easy Way

Teaching our children geography can be such a daunting task! Especially cartography, the art of drawing maps. Where to start? Should they know everything by heart? Which curriculum to use? So many options and questions it can get quite overwhelming. A few years ago, after baby #6’s arrival, I was tired, very tired, but school had to go on. That is when I discovered Kristin J. Draeger’s books and fell in love with geography all over again.

Introducing…

Allow me to introduce you to Kristin J. Draeger and her wonderful collection of cartography books: Draw the World. These books have quickly become my favorite geography resources to introduce my children to the world, its outlines, borders, countries, and now landmarks.
As you might already know, I love geography. I love its potential to awaken wonder and excitement  in myself and my children. Draw the World introduces the world and each continent in a very approachable way, through drawing. Each double page introduces a new country, border or outline, and allows us to go as fast as we want or to take our time and meander through the world.

Order

We started with Draw the World: An Outline of Continents and Oceans. This is the easiest one to introduce as it is a simple outline of the continents, with their names and the names of the oceans. It helps situate my child for the next step and broadens her view from home to the whole world. The directions are easy to follow and keep things simple. Now that my child has a basic understanding of the world and where things are in relation to each other I can move on to the next book.
Next we explored Draw the USA, as it was a natural move for us to be able to place ourselves in the world. From there we went North to Draw Canada and Greenland before heading South of the border with Draw Mexico, Central and South America.  After the Americas we moved on to Draw Europe, as that is what makes sense for us due to our ancestry. And so we moved on around the globe, to Draw Africa, Draw Asia Volume I and Draw Asia Volume II ending with Draw Oceania.

How to

Each book is built the same: first get your paper ready, I highly recommend using card stock, it will last longer. Then each page’s outer corner has the name of the continent, country or state being outlined, we usually trace one full set a day, except for Draw the World, where we still break it down to a couple of pages a day. When I say “we”, I do mean “we”, I work right alongside my children on my own map. We only work with pencils and erasers, at least at first. Once we have completed a book, some of us choose to ink their map before coloring it. We love these Pigma Micron pens for inking, they are fine enough to go over the tracing but bold enough to create a beautiful outline. Most of us like to use colored pencils for coloring, but any medium would work. I want to work my way to watercoloring mine, but I am not quite ready for that yet. Maybe the next map.

Draw the Natural Wonders

To dive a little deeper into our geography, this year we restarted with Draw the USA and then added Draw the Natural Wonders of the USA: River, Lakes, Mountains, Deserts, Seas, Flora, Fauna and More. It was so much fun! We are again in an interesting season of life where my time is not my own and homeschooling had to be trimmed to the essentials. This was perfect to keep us going in geography! It took us all fall to complete both maps, but we enjoyed it, 10 minutes – ish at a time, every day. We are not sure where we will head next: Europe, Africa or Canada and Greenland. But no matter where we go, I am looking forward to it. The Draw the Natural Wonders books require a little more preparation as you will need to add a key to your map. I plan on having some special colored pencils available and ready so that we do not have to scramble every time for blues and greens.

What we did

When we decided to embark on Draw the Natural Wonders of the USA, we first had to re-Draw the USA. The girls’ drawing skills have greatly improved since our last go around, and my 10 yo hadn’t had the chance to draw a map of the USA in the first place, as she was too young (under 6). So we started with Draw the USA. We should have inked these maps first before moving on to Draw the Natural Wonders of the USA, I regret not doing that. The reason we should have inked first is that once we started on the Natural Wonders, erasing anything became a daunting task as we had to go back and re-trace from Draw the USA as well as the section we were working on. So live and learn, ink the first map, then move on to adding the Natural Wonders. We took it easy, kept it simple and enjoyable. These maps are not our best work, by far, but it was satisfying nonetheless and we all look forward to our next one.

Keep it simple!

The key to enjoying this process and getting the most out of it is to keep it simple. I have a tendency to have all these grand plans and then we run out of time. I get frustrated because we get “behind” and it takes the fun away. So this year, I resisted really hard my inclination to add picture books for each state, to do a deep dive study of each Natural Wonder and kept it barebone simple, and truly it was the best! In December I spent some time researching when each State joined the Union. I have started to include each State on the anniversary of their entrance into Union in the Booklover monthly membership. This will allow us an easy and slow study of the States. I plan on having the girls add a few details to their maps as we learn about each state, such as the state bird, tree and flower. I’d love to add the flags and capitals as well, but we might have to start a whole new map for this much detail, and maybe we will… In a couple years. See, I am already overcomplicating, lol!
So do keep it simple!

In the future

I might truly come up with “grander” plans for these maps and will certainly keep you posted if I do. For now, in this season, keeping it simple is what works best for us. So I shall be a good girl and remain focused on the good rather than the grand. But there are so many ways to deep dive into these maps and to follow your fancies! You could add the National Parks, the National Monuments, historical battlefields, and on and on and on. But for now we will keep it simple.
Love,
Mattie