#3793. Making a Region Map of a state

Geography, level: Elementary
Posted Wed May 31 17:24:58 PDT 2006 by April DeGraw ().
Hayden Elementary, Midway City, CA
Materials Required: 11 x 9 tag board for each student, Dough (3 C. flour, 1 1/2 C. salt, 1 tbsp. alum, 2 C. water)
Activity Time: An hour for the 1st part/ painting times
Concepts Taught: What are the main regions of a state and where are they located?

1. This is a culminating lesson to be done after studying about your state's regions.
2. Pass out the tag board with an outline of your state.
3. Give each student a couple spoonfuls of the salt and flour mixture and show them how to spread it out evenly out to the edges of the outline.
4. Have the students then create the topography of the landscape; putting in mountains, valleys, lowlands, major lakes, etc. Anything important that you have been studying about the regions in your state.
5. You will need to let these maps dry completely before you paint them, so make sure they are not too thick. It usually takes a few weeks.
6. Choose colors of paint to represent the regions in your state. For example: Brown-Mountains, Green- lowlands, Yellow - desert, and blue for all water.
7. I have a table set up covered and with the paint and have a few students at a time come over to do the painting. I do it in steps and it takes several days. First, have students start by painting the whole state whichever color region covers most of your state (I start with yellow which represents all the lowlands, then they can continue to paint the other smaller regions after the initial paint dries.If your state is completely surrounded by land, have them paint the rest of the tag board brown or some other neutral color, if there is an ocean, paint that blue.
8. When it is completely painted and dry, have the students label the map with the surrounding states, oceans, countries, etc. that border your state.
9. Include a "Map Key" that tells what region is represented by which color and have them draw a compass rose.