One Day,
the children, late for school, blasted through the back door and out onto the street.
Their shoes were hardly tied, their lunches and books practically spilled out of their backpacks.
Out of the boy’s bag fell some papers — mostly white — but one was full of colors! It was brown, green and blue!
Niccolo ran over and picked it up. It had lines that ran up the page and across it.
There were words and shapes on it and a beautiful star.
He spent all day trying to figure out that piece of paper. Niccolo had not gone to school, but he knew the word “Venezia” from the crates of milk that were delivered every day to the back porch.
This PLACE were I am must be Venetia! thought Niccolo.
He quickly figured out that the piece of paper showed other PLACES – places outside of the chicken yard!
- Venetia is Italian for Venice.
Niccolo’s first map
before there were google maps, apple maps, waze and gPS, there were … Maps!
Maps are pieces of paper that give the reader a bird’s eye view from above information about a place and its relationship to other places in the world.
Below you will find two videos that introduce maps and globes at a very easy and fun level – the first one is in one of my favorite ways: A Cat in the Hat Learning Library Read-A-Loud Book! Published in 2002 by Random House, written by Tish Rabe and illustrated by Aristideas Ruiz. I hope you enjoy it!