Connect and Explore - Where in the World Are We?

We're going on a Treasure Hunt video

Activities (30  minutes)

Walk students from the classroom to the library, paying attention to the directions and landmarks you pass.

Discuss your trip to the library. Talk about different ways you could have gone and how you could explain to someone new to campus how to get from your classroom to the library. 

Share "We're going on a Treasure Hunt" with students (new vocab to note: map, forward, back, through, down, over, under, right, left, up, around). 

Reflect on the song by asking:

What did you hear?

What questions do you have? 

What do you want to know about getting from one place to another?

Now tie in the song by explaining to students that we will be learning about maps.

Ask “What do you know about maps?

Where have you seen maps before? 

Who have you seen use maps?”

Maps are tools we use to help us get from one location to another. They help us find and describe locations easily to one another. Maps can be made for any location like our campus (and point out the campus evacuation map on the door).

Help the students make a personal connection to the library by asking: 

Do you think it could be helpful to have a map of our library?

Spanish Resources:

Las direcciones song (Spanish)

Sésamo: Pequeñas Aventureras - El mapa del tesoro

Librarian will select a book on the shelf and pull it to show the students the book’s address (the call number). 

Explain to the students that the address is important because that’s the books home, that’s where it lives. The address helps us find/locate the book so it doesn’t get lost. You can even relate the book address to their home/school address.

Students explore different addresses  in the Everybody section in groups. 

Point out the alphabetical pattern in how the books are sorted, and have student(s) find and share where certain letters are located.