Ethan is starting school in September and we're busy doing everything we can to help him feel prepared (but not overwhelm him!)  One thing that he really loves is maps, so I thought that a fun activity would be to make our own map of our route to school that he could look at and play with in the lead up to September.

What you'll need:

• a large piece of paper (we used a big roll of paper)
• Blu Tack
• Foam sheets
• Scissors
• Clear Glu
• Markers
• Wooden stick people (optional)

We started by talking about the route that we take to school and just drawing out a little sketch of the path that we take from our house to Ethan's school so that we would have something to go by.  This is a great way to introduce different directions (turning left or right) as well as different landmarks that you pass on the way.  Ethan cut a large piece of white paper off our big roll and stuck it to the wall using Blu Tack so that we would be able to see the map every day.



Once that was done we started cutting out the foam pieces into the different things that we would see along the walk to school.  Our route starts at our house (a square house and triangle roof) then continues along our road, onto a pathway then through a park by the river, then we're onto another road and down the path to Ethan's school.  Ethan helped me to cut out the roads and pathways as well as the trees and river.


He suggested that the roads needed to have lines down the middle, so I gave him some markers so that he could draw along the roads.


He was very good at putting the clear glue onto the back of each piece of foam that we had cut out and then sticking it into place.  The whole time he talked about the way that we walk and the different things that we see.  There was a lot of cutting out to do so I helped Ethan quite a bit, but he really liked cutting out the trees and some of the river when he realised that they didn't have to be perfect.  This craft is more about the process and being able to use it as a learning tool rather than looking perfect.



Once we had stuck everything down Ethan decided that our house and the school needed some windows and doors, so he drew those on using markers.  He also thought that his name should be on our house, so he wrote it there, and then I encouraged him to write the word school by telling him each of the letters to write.


Then once our map was complete it was time to play!  We happened to have these cute little wooden people that make perfect little puppets and Ethan used some foam smiley face stickers to stick on their heads (you could also dress them up in their school uniforms like we did when we made our Reading Buddy Pointer Craft). Of course you could make your own little people using paper or more of the foam sheets.  As soon as Ethan had them he walked them along the route from our house to school, then he had them all say goodbye to each other and the Ethan puppet stayed at school while the Mommy and Ivy puppets walked back home.  So it was really good to see how well he understands what's going to happen and that he's perfectly happy about it.


We've left our map up on the wall for the kids to see every day and they go and play with it at least once a day too.  It really is a nice way to talk about going to school each day without any pressure and in a fun way.


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* This is a review post, we were sent a box of craft supplies from Bostik in order to make this craft.*