Follow That Map!: A First Book of Mapping Skills (Exploring Our Community)
Follow That Map!: A First Book of Mapping Skills (Exploring Our Community) book cover

Follow That Map!: A First Book of Mapping Skills (Exploring Our Community)

Price
$15.29
Format
Hardcover
Pages
32
Publisher
Kids Can Press
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1554532742
Dimensions
8.8 x 0.45 x 10.25 inches
Weight
13.6 ounces

Description

From School Library Journal In this clever introduction, Sally and her four friends are looking for her missing cat and dog. The simple text is accompanied by a colorful map that uses symbols to identify places such as the library. Next, the youngsters explore the park, and the map shows how to follow a route. They continue their search in the city, the countryside, and eventually across the world and the solar system. On the way, a different type of map—for example, weather, topographical, and treasure—is featured on each spread and explained. The idea works well for the first few pages but falls apart as the children go further and further afield. However, the information is solid, and readers will enjoy looking for the animals, who are hiding somewhere in each map. Back matter includes instructions for creating a map of a bedroom.— Wendy Woodfill, Hennepin County Library, Minnetonka, MN END From Booklist Sally and friends are playing in her backyard when they notice that her dog and cat, Max and Ollie, are missing. Determined to find them, they run through their neighborhood, the park, and the zoo; venture into the country and to a tropical island; and finally travel around the world and into space before locating the animals in the backyard. The fanciful story is less important than the overhead views of the search, which create maplike scenes of the children searching across land, sea, and space. Map-related information appears in bold type on each spread. Younger children will enjoy finding Ollie and Max in each xadcartoon-style picture, but older ones can pick up quite a bit about maps, including their purpose, use of symbols, and terminology, e.g., compass rose and legend. An appended project shows children how to create maps of their bedrooms. Preschool-Grade 3. --Carolyn Phelan ... funny (the cartoon characters look after that) and useful book about maps and mapping for beginners.― The Globe and Mail The bright, easy-to-follow illustrations do an excellent job of highlighting all the major concepts ...― Quill & Quire With an appealing search-and-find technique, an interactive picture book explains and demonstrates key mapping concepts.― Books for Growing Minds Scot Ritchie is an award winning illustrator who lives in Vancouver British Columbia. He has illustrated over 50 children's books, (some of which he also wrote) including Let's Go! The Story of Getting from There to Here, Up, Up and Away and the Basics for Beginners series, Hockey, Baseball and Soccer. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • Maps are about far more than getting from a to b. Maps can help children understand and explore both their everyday environment and faraway places. With an appealing search-and-find technique, Follow That Map! is an interactive picture book that explains and demonstrates key mapping concepts. Kids will enjoy following Sally and her friends as they search for Max and Ollie, a mischievous dog and cat on the lam from the backyard. Sally and friends take an imaginative trip through the neighborhood, city and country, around the world and beyond. Kids can join in the search for Max and Ollie, who are hiding somewhere in every map. An activity at the end of the book shows children how to make a map of their bedroom.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(218)
★★★★
25%
(91)
★★★
15%
(55)
★★
7%
(25)
-7%
(-25)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Don’t forget graph paper!

This book is really simple and does a great job of explaining maps. Geared toward the K and 1st grade crowd. It goes over the different parts of a map, compass rose, legend etc. The last page is a map drawing activity. This is when having graph paper is necessary. My kids wanted to start right away, but had to wait for Amazon to bring graph paper, I also got them a compass. Endless play making maps. I got the 1/2 inch graph paper.
This book along with graph paper, compass, clip board and colored pencils makes an awesome gender neutral gift.
72 people found this helpful
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An appealing introduction

Elaborate compass roses, legends, latitudes, longitudes, scale indicators, and landmark icons; the world of maps is a mysterious, and often-complex one. In Follow That Map!: A First Book of Mapping Skills, book creator Scott Ritchie brings mapping down to a fun, colourful, and manageable level for young children.

Ritchie begins by introducing young readers to the characters, and a diagram that explains the common features found on a map, When Pedro notices that Sally's dog Max, and her cat Ollie are "missing", the children are off on an imaginary voyage that will take them around the world and back in search of the missing pets.

At each stop along the way, new mapping skills are taught by placing the characters directly on landscapes that appear as detailed maps from the overhead, offset perspective the bold illustrations are drawn from. This perspective is consistent throughout, even when no mapping skills are being taught, adding to a consistent feel throughout the book.

As the children scour the neighborhood for Max and Ollie, legend skills are introduced, with an interactive question to engage children. At each progressive stop additional skills are folded in, sometimes in combination with each other. When the children strike out through the city in search of the zoo, using a compass rose is the main focus, with legend skills also included.

When I sat down to work through Follow That Map! with my daughter it seemed almost too easy - the learning that came from reading the simple story and asking her the included questions was effortless and fun for both of us. The introductory level skills explored are: legends, trails, compass rose, scale bar, weather map, following directions with the help of a map, topographical maps, landmarks, and world maps. A simple map of the planets in our solar system is also included, as well as instructions on how to create a simple, yet accurate map of a room in your home with a sheet of graph paper.

Incredibly appealing to young children visually, the cartoon-like illustrations fill most of each two-page spread, with a small amount of text, plenty of white space, and a large font for early readers. Written for four to seven-year-olds, Follow That Map! serves as a geography primer of sorts - an easily accessible sample to pique the interest of young learners, and to familiarize them with tools that they will use for the rest of their lives. The bright drawings, game-like activities, and subtle humor encourage repeat readings, browsing, and informal map-play times guided by improvised questions.
58 people found this helpful
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pleased buyer

This book is easy enough to follow for a six-year old, and teaches the basics of map-making without sounding like a text book. After I read him the book, my grandson did a drawing and together we selected symbols for the legend and added the compass. I am pleased with the presentation and the quality of the illustrations.
28 people found this helpful
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Learn mapping making it FUN!!!

Loved the legends throughout the book that are fun with directions using the legends to find the missing cat and dog & the variety of maps.!What a fun way to learn mapping for my grandson (4 yrs old). I purchased the cute compass (Wildlife Compass) with a moose on it to use with the book. (Got through Amazon too and it has a breakaway safety lanyard and is luminous & battery free!!!)
15 people found this helpful
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It's okay but am dissapointed.

5yo seemed to like first read. Has not requested again. I am disappointed in the use of characters used in the "story". There was little to no introduction to thw characters and neither I nor my child knew which character depiction matched which name when they were referenced. The story line is some kids looking for thwir cat and dog yet the cat and dog supposedly always a step ahead of the kids as they travel from place to place as they use newly introduced map skills though the pets are never really along the path the kids take, so the whole 'following the trail' thing didn't at all align with the story. My kid didn't seem to care, but it bothered me. There is much more following the clues sense of flow to the Berenstein Bears detective series of books, but none to my knowledge teach the mapping skills. All in all it was okay considering I've yet to come across other kids books dealing with maps, so nothing to compare to, but ultimately I think this one is lacking.
15 people found this helpful
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The kids were engaged and I enjoyed reading it

I used this book as a read-aloud to introduce basic map skills to my combined 1st and 2nd-grade class. It is not too technical and gives plenty of easy-to-understand vocabulary for this age group. It has examples of a variety of map types. The kids were engaged and I enjoyed reading it!
15 people found this helpful
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Fantastic introduction into the world of maps!

This is a great book if you want your child to appreciate and understand maps. It is beyond the concentration capacity of my 5 year-old but my 7 year-old is showing more interest in it. It has a lot of basic explanation of maps and how they are used in a very understandable way for kids.
14 people found this helpful
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Great Book!

I teach Head Start and we were doing a study on our community. I love how the book begins with a concrete example of a map in their backyard, moves on to their town and then reaches out to the country, a treasure map and even space.
12 people found this helpful
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Great Book!

I teach Head Start and we were doing a study on our community. I love how the book begins with a concrete example of a map in their backyard, moves on to their town and then reaches out to the country, a treasure map and even space.
12 people found this helpful
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... what was in the book and that "it was good for basics"

Item as described
Purchased for my nine year old
As he explained it was more for his brother who is seven years old
He states that he already knew what was in the book and that "it was good for basics"
8 people found this helpful