Geography resources question

[mapsareok]

Hi all,

I work as a designer for a cartography (we make maps!) company. There are lots of resources out there for the recent enforcement of schoolchildren, but I'd like to take the time to ask: what can we/I do, as a designer of maps and illustrator of geography, to help you to educate and occupy your children?

Map themed games? Digital print outs? Extra large posters? I'm sure you have lots of great ideas.

If you can spare the time, let me know your thoughts of how we could help you and your children.

Thanks in advance and I hope that this time will bond you and your kids together - not stress you out!

My kid has a short attention span and likes her education in snack-sized chunks. A resource I really enjoy is Facebook pages or groups where snippets of trivia or links to interesting news articles are posted. It pops up on my newsfeed and we talk about it. So for us it isn't "let's sit and talk about maps", but rather "oh look, a 700 year old Italian map has just been unearthed - it looks so different from the maps we make now!" or "this video explains why most of our maps now have north at the top of the map, but look at some of these maps which don't do it that way." One of the great things about doing it that way is that talking about the subject becomes integrated into our daily lives.

Here are examples of what I mean, for other subjects.

Linguistics and language: www.facebook.com/stevethevagabond
Archaeology: www.facebook.com/archaeologynews/

I agree with Saracen. That's how we do a lot of home ed.
The other thing that jumps out is you can offer unique insight into map making. A series of fb or blog posts showing the steps in producing a map would be really interesting. Don't try and map to NC there are a lot of worksheet providers out there. You have unique knowledge and experience, it's lovely to want to share it. It may also be interesting to do a careers post, sounds a wonderful job.

A series of fb or blog posts showing the steps in producing a map would be really interesting. Oh yes, we would LOVE that! We are all very keen to know how things are made.

Yes please also to a careers post! How did you get into the field? Have you always wanted to do it, or if not what jobs did you do previously and why did you decide to change? What do you like/dislike about your job? Who do you work with, and how do you work together? What is a typical day like (if there is such a thing)?

My son (5) adores maps. His favourite are the ones from zoos we visit, though he does like maps of the world. I think the zoo ones appeal due to the little pictures of the animals on.

My dd (8) enjoys learning facts, so would love an interactive map she could dip into.

It would be good to be able to pick a continent, then within that, a country, then key facts pop up about that. She enjoys looking at flags so having that info on would appeal.

She also likes Time Table Rock stars which is a timed quiz. So she would play a timed quiz on various topics (click on the animal native to this country type thing, progressing to the more challeng8ng ones as she gets more right).