Geography: Mapping for 2nd grade

Day 1  We are going to study maps, there are several new words and meanings that we will be studying. The word direction any ideas about its meaning? Direction means using words to understand how to do something. If I were to give you directions to go to the office (your destination) what words would we use? Let's chart some words that you could use to help our friend get to the office.
 
 http://www.spellingcity.com/view-spelling-list.html?listId=3464269

Day 2  We explored all of the new words, today we will apply them as we create a chart with words we learned yesterday. We will define them so put your thinking caps on...."swish" when they are on. Now we will look at the words north, south, east, west. We will use these words a lot today when we are creating our town on the construction paper. This will be a community project but we will discuss where the buildings, rivers and railroad tracks and the directions from our school is. When your finished with your portion of the map please go to your computer and play building a community in Mr. Rogers community builder.
 
  http://pbskids.org/rogers/buildANeighborhood.html

Day 3   We are going to play with the smartboard and sticky notes. I will put a map of the United States on the board. Please put you name on your sticky note. I want you to be thinking about a place in the United States you have visited, even if you have not been out of Michigan. When I randomly call students up I want you to tell me where and what you did on vacation. We will develop an understanding of the United States map as we place our sticky note on our vacation spot. I will help you find the proper state.                                                                                                                                                    
 http://mapsof.net/uploads/static-maps/map_of_the_united_states_of_america.gif

Day 4 Today we will be discussing animals around the world. Looking at our globe let's take a virtual tour around the world. Starting in Washington D.C., who knows where that is? Looking at the web camera at the National Zoo we can see many animals. Someone will put a sticky tab on the United States to represent the National Zoo. Now we move to China where we are going to look at Large Pandas, someone put a sticky note on China please. We move from China to Australia where we watch a video about Komodo Dragons and if they climb trees or not. We now move to a live cam in the African grasslands...look it's a water hole where elephants are hanging around.
 
 Washington D.C. http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/WebCams/default.cfm?hpout=webcam_link&xtr=
 China    http://www.kinabaloo.com/zo2.html    no cameras only pictures
 Australia   http://www.australiazoo.com.au/our-animals/daily-video-diaries/index.php?diary=365
 Africa    http://www.africam.com/wildlife/index.php

Day 5   We will be wrapping up the unit today. We will start with creating a map of these choices; your neighborhood, the classroom, the school parking lot, the entire school. When you are finished we will hang it in the hallway and you can go to the computer and take a small fun quiz about maps by using the link below. At 9:45 we will come together at the carpet and play globe popcorn. Be thinking about what you have learned in the past week. When the globe comes to you tell me what you learned, definition or a description in your own words. It's a fun day. We will have Michigan snacks today; apples, cherries and grapes.

 Quiz                        http://www.mrsbogucki.com/cgi-bin/quiz.pl?FILE=mapping