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Recipe

Using their hands, have students mix together 4 cups of flour, 2 cups of salt, 2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar.  I'm thinking this might be enough dough for two maps but am not sure.

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DIY: How to make a humidity hide for a leopard gecko

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these home made hides really work try it out. i gurantee good results sorry about all the random words lol i was trying to rush because i wanted it to fit in 10 min

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Weather & Meteorology : What Is Humidity?

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Humidity is a measure of moisture in the air, specifically that of water vapor, which is water in its gaseous state. Find out how to measure absolute humidity and how to determine the ratio of dry air to water vapor with help from a meteorologist in this free video on understanding weather.

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What Makes Humidity Feel So Hot? | Project Science

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Put link to this map on Seesaw for map kids; excellent resource

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Put link to this map on Seesaw for map kids; excellent resource

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The detailed terrain map represents one of many map types and styles available. Look at Thailand from different perspectives.

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usmlowerschoolsocialstudies - SW Travel Brochure Project

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After reading so many books that featured Asian Elephants last week, we decided we needed to do an elephant craft project. First I browsed on-line for elephant images, and found some beautiful hand-embroidered pillow shams and purses. A lot of times the elephants were silver thread or silver sequins, so we decided to use foil. I had seen a technique that I wanted to adapt ( see original post here), so we gathered our supplies: foil, glue, cardboard, paints. Here is our finished elephant craft. Didn't my son do such a great job?

Step 1: Have children draw an elephant onto the cardboard using a black sharpie. Vivi asked me to help her with the ear:). The smoother the cardboard, the better the final product. We used one corrugated sheet, but another on the back of a notebook and the second was much smoother.

Step 2: Squeeze glue over your lines. My 7 year olds needed a little bit of help with this- this project is probably better for 8+.

Step 3: Wait until the glue is dry- it can take a while depending on how humid it is outside!- then wrap up your cardboard with foil. You can tape it if you like, but it stays pretty well on the cardboard if you fold it over:

Step 4: Using your fingers, rub over your hidden drawing- and watch it magically appear! You will see that this elephant's cardboard was corrugated, and the lines are coming through. My son's cardboard was from the back of a notebook and is much smoother.

Final Step: Paint with tempura/acrylic/poster paints (not water colors or washable/finger paints). We first did this project with sharpies, but the colors were not as bold as we had hoped for. The kids just painted over the sharpies, and got the bright, vivid colors you see here:

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After reading so many books that featured Asian Elephants last week, we decided we needed to do an elephant craft project. First I browsed on-line for elephant images, and found some beautiful hand-embroidered pillow shams and purses. A lot of times the elephants were silver thread or silver sequins, so we decided to use foil.

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Technically, This Is Technical (Writing)

Technical writing is a type of writing that helps someone solve a problem or acquire necessary information about a specific subject. Examples of technical writing include instruction manuals, recipes, how-to guides, text books, multimedia presentations, and operating instructions. Every occupation and field of study has its own language that's incorporated into specialized reports and other written work. This, too, is considered technical writing.

The following is an example on how to write technically:

1. Know your audience - This is true for all types of writing. You must know to whom you are writing. If you're writing, for example, an instruction manual on how to program a cell phone for the general public, you're going to use words that most people will understand. If you're writing the same manual for a group of software designers for Verizon Wireless, you're going to use more technical terms and more complex functions.

2. Write an introduction - Keep the introduction short. Let the reader know who needs to read it and why they need to read it. If the reader belongs to the "who" group and your "why" solves his problem, then you have just grabbed his attention. (See the introduction to this how-to-example.)

3. Be direct - Readers of technical writing are not looking for a life-changing literary experience. They have a problem. They want you to solve it. If it's an instruction or how-to manual, use the imperative voice. If it's a technical analysis or a report for the boss, leave out any unnecessary words.

4. Use space - If this example was one long paragraph instead of a numbered list, you would have clicked off it immediately. Brains like order and space. Small paragraphs are good. Numbered or bulleted lists are great. If a specific order is required, use numbers; otherwise, use bullets.

5. Try it before you submit it. It's a good idea to test your technical writing, especially if it involves instructions. You can also have a friend try it. The directions must be clear enough for someone else to follow. Your tester/guinea pig/editor may point out ambiguous instructions or unclear explanations that you may not have discovered.

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Brochure directions on Youtube for Google docs

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Brochure directions on Youtube for Google docs

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Students could design a travel brochure for visiting Thailand; include all of their vocabulary words.

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How to Make a Brochure Using Google Docs

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Google Docs is free and easily accessible, and can be helpful to those who want to make a brochure. Docs even includes readymade templates to use, but you can make your own by playing around with the different format settings. Use columns,...

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Everyone's posts have been so delightfully turkey-ish that I feel silly about my water cycle! But that's what I had to teach last week in science. The kids had a LOT of background knowledge from the investigations we did about changes in states of matter, and from second and first grade.

So first, we did a graffiti gallery walk to activate background knowledge. I put four charts around the room with four different pictures, but no labels: a cloud with raindrops, arrows pointing towards a forming cloud, a water running down a hill into a lake, and a sun shining down on water with arrows pointing up. The kids moved in groups throughout the room, writing what they saw and knew about the pictures. They already knew a lot!

Next, we watched a Brainpop jr. about the water cycle.

Then, we made these foldables!

I heart foldables :)

In our ensuing conversations, I was enlightened about what my kids do outside when it rains.

"What's precipitation?" one of the kids asked.

"It's any form of water falling from the clouds to the earth, like rain, sleet, snow, or hail," I said.

"What's hail?" one of the other kids asked.

"It's like a ball of ice."

"Yeah," one of the kids said, "and it's a choking hazard." Dead. Serious. What the WHAT?!

I expected the other kids to laugh, but they mostly just nodded. I chuckled and asked, "A choking hazard?"

"Yup." Apparently, when it's raining (and even when it's almost bad enough to hail!) my students stand outside, staring up at the sky with their mouths wide open, in danger of choking on hail.

My job is awesome.

For this folded flapbook and so many more cool activities for teaching the water cycle and weather, check out my Water, Water Everywhere Unit on TPT!

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Everyone's posts have been so delightfully turkey-ish that I feel silly about my water cycle! But that's what I had to teach last week in science. The kids had a LOT of background knowledge from the investigations we did about changes in states of matter, and from second and first grade.

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How a Cactus Stores Water

What You Need:

3 wet paper towels

cookie sheet

2 paper clips

sheet of waxed paper slightly bigger than a paper towel

What You Do:

1. Lay one wet paper towel flat on the cookie sheet.

2. Roll the second wet paper towel up into a log shape. Clip it in the center of the roll with a paper clip to keep it rolled. Set the roll on the cookie sheet.

3. Lay the sheet of waxed paper down flat, then lay the last wet paper towel on top of it. Roll both layers up into a log and hold in place with another paper clip. Put this roll on the cookie sheet with the others.

4. Leave the cookie sheet in a place where it won't be disturbed. At the same time the next day (after 24 hours), check out the paper towels. Unroll the rolled ones. Which one is driest? Are any of them still damp?

What Happened:

The flat paper towel was probably completely dry, the one that you rolled up may have still been slightly damp inside the roll, and the one rolled with waxed paper was probably still fairly damp all over. Rolling up the paper towel kept some parts of it from being exposed to the air, so less water could evaporate and it didn't dry out as much as the one that was completely exposed to the air. The waxed paper protected the last paper towel from the air very well, so hardly any water evaporated from that one.

Many desert plants, like cacti and other succulents (read more about them in the Science Lesson section), have a waxy coating on the outside of their stems and leaves. It helps them store water and protects them from losing water in the hot sun and dry air of the desert.

Sun and Shade

Which do you think is hottest, a spot in the sun or a spot nearby that's in the shade? You'll discover the answer and learn why it's true in this experiment.

What You Need:

two indoor/outdoor thermometers

a bucket or box about 12 inches tall

enough sand to fill the bucket

a hot, sunny day

What You Do - Part 1:

1. Place one thermometer on the ground in a sunny spot. Put the other one on the ground in a place that is shaded by a tree or large rock.

2. Make sure your spots will stay sunny and shady for the next 30 minutes.

3. After about 30 minutes, read the temperature on each thermometer. Which spot was hotter, the sunny spot, or the shady one?

What You Do - Part 2:

1. In the morning, fill the bucket with sand. The sand should be at least 10 inches deep.

2. Put the bucket of sand in a spot that will not get any shade all day. Leave it in that spot.

3. Late in the afternoon, go to the bucket and stick one thermometer into the sand. The bulb at the bottom of the thermometer should be barely covered by sand. Leave it there for a minute, then take it out and read the temperature.

4. Push the thermometer into the sand again, but this time push it down as far as you can without losing it. After two minutes, pull it out and read the temperature.

5. What did you learn? Was the sand cooler near the top or farther down?

What Happened:

In the first part of the experiment, you found that a spot in the shade is quite a bit cooler than a spot in the sun. The thermometer in the sun may have read a temperature that was hotter than the actual temperature of the air. That's because the sun was shining on the thermometer all the time and heating it up, so the thermometer was measuring the temperature of the heat from the sun's rays instead of just the temperature of the air around it. The thermometer in the shady spot was cooler because not as much heat from the sunlight could reach it. Thermometers at weather stations are always protected from direct sunlight so they can give a correct reading of the air temperature.

You could also try this experiment again using your body instead of thermometers. First, sit or stand in the sun for about 5 or 10 minutes, or until you start to feel pretty hot. Then, move into the shade for the same amount of time. You should feel a lot cooler when the time is up. That's because when the sun shines directly onto your body, you heat up faster, because your body soaks up, or absorbs, the heat from the rays of sunlight. One way animals in the desert keep cool is to rest in the shade during the day to protect their bodies from the extra heat of the sun.

In the second part, you probably read a pretty hot temperature from the first thermometer in the bucket of sand. That's because the sand absorbed the heat from the sun shining on it all day. You probably found that the temperature deeper into the sand was cooler. That's because the sun's light couldn't reach down into the sand. The very top surface was the hottest part because the sunlight could reach it. The farther down you went, the cooler the sand got, because the light and heat coming from the sun's rays were blocked by the grains of sand at the top. Heat doesn't spread very quickly in sand, so even on a very hot sunny day, the farther down into the ground (or bucket of sand) you go, the cooler it will be! Some desert animals use this to help them stay cool. They dig down, or burrow, into the ground during the day and come out at night after the sun goes down and it starts to cool down.

Learn About Deserts & Cacti

All About Deserts

There are two main kinds of deserts - hot deserts and cold deserts. All deserts are very dry and only get 10 inches or less of rain (or snow, in some deserts) each year. Deserts are located all around the world and most of them cover a large area of land. Because of their large size, some deserts can be a lot different in different areas. For example, the largest hot desert, the Sahara, has areas with mountains. Most deserts have sandy or rocky soil. Some have large piles of sand that have been formed and hardened by the wind, called sand dunes. Other deserts have large rocks. Some deserts even have flat plains with grass and small shrubs.

The hottest deserts are called arid, which just means they are extremely dry. Hot temperatures and lack of water make arid deserts too harsh of a place for most plants or animals to survive. Even though they are very hot, usually around 100° Fahrenheit during the day (but can get higher than 120° at times!), they cool down a lot when the sun goes down. Night temperatures in hot deserts can sometimes fall all the way down to 0° F during the coldest part of the year! The reason it gets cold at night is that the dry air can't hold the heat from the day, so it rises back up into the sky, cooling the earth down. (If you live in a humid place, you may know that it doesn't cool off very much even at night after a hot summer day. That's because the moisture in the air from the humidity blocks the heat and keeps it from rising.)

Some hot deserts are slightly cooler and get more rain. They are called semi-arid and can support many more kinds of plants and animals. Semi-arid deserts are similar to arid deserts, but are a little less extreme, although they still get pretty hot because of the dry air. Semi-arid deserts also tend to get dew and sometimes fog that bring moisture even when it doesn't rain.

Did you know that Antarctica and the Arctic are considered deserts? They are covered by snow and ice, but most of it has been there for a very long time without ever melting! It might seem like a place that is covered in frozen water could not be a desert. Well, for most of the year, it is too cold for the snow and ice to melt, which means plants and animals can't use it as water. Most animals that live in these frozen deserts live on the coast near the ocean, where there is water that isn't completely frozen. However, some animals, like polar bears, can survive on land by burrowing underground to stay warm and hibernating during the coldest times of year. Cold deserts mostly get snow instead of rain during the winter. They are very dry because cold air holds less water vapor (tiny droplets of water) than warm air!

There are also some cold deserts that are not as extreme as the ones at the north and south poles. Even though they get quite cold in the winter, the summers are usually warm, long, and dry. The driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert in South America, is an example.

Desert Animals

Even though it is hot and water is hard to find, the desert is a habitat for many plants and animals, just like the forest or the ocean. Living in a desert can be difficult, but desert plants and animals have special ways to survive lots of heat (or cold, in the cold deserts) and not much water.

During the day, the sun quickly makes animals hot and evaporates(or dries up) water from their bodies. Many desert animals, like foxes, mice, snakes, and insects, are nocturnal, which means they are most active at night. When the sun goes down in the desert, it gets much cooler and many animals come out of their burrows (holes in the ground away from the sun's heat) or out of the shade where they hide out during the day. Some desert foxes and mice have very large ears that help their bodies get rid of extra heat.

In a desert, water is very precious. Even when it's hot and dry and doesn't rain for months, animals and plants can still live, as long as they get some water. Plants can sometimes get water from deep underground using their roots. Animals can get enough water to stay alive by eating certain plants. Sometimes clouds moving through the desert can cause tiny droplets of water, called dew, to form on leaves, grasses, cactus spines, and other surfaces. This happens at night when it cools down. Early in the morning, animals can get a quick drink before the hot sun comes up and dries up the moisture. Dew is an important source of water for life in the desert - even if it doesn't rain for a long time, animals and plants can use the moisture from dew to stay alive.

All living things need water to live. Why is water so important? Water makes up about 70% of our bodies, so going long periods of time without drinking any water could make you very sick. That is also true for animals, except they don't need nearly as much water as humans do. Ones that live in the desert need even less water than animals that live other places. For example, camels are able to store water in their humps, so they can go a long time without a drink.

For a map of deserts around the world, excluding the polar deserts, visit this site.

Cacti & Other Desert Plants

Have you ever seen a cactus? Cacti (more than one cactus) are plants that grow very well in dry places. They can gather water easily when it's available using their long roots and store it in their trunks and branches for when it isn't. These special plants are also good at making their water last a long time. A waxy coating on the outside of a cactus makes it harder for water to evaporate from the plant, even when the weather is very hot and dry. Because of these special features, cacti can live for a long time without rain or any other source of water.

Cacti are succulentplants. Because of all the water they store, they have fleshy and swollen-looking bodies. Their stems can swell up to hold extra water that they absorb when it rains. Other succulent plants besides cacti - such as yucca, jade, and aloe vera - have thick leaves that can store a lot more water than the leaves of most plants. Most, but not all, plants that grow in deserts are succulents. These plants normally have shallow roots that spread out far from the plant to collect as much water as possible when it rains. Some of them also have a large taproot, which goes down several feet into the ground to reach water deep below the surface.

Most kinds of cacti have spines instead of leaves. Spines make it harder for animals to eat a cactus, keeping its water supply safe. Cacti grow flowers during the season with the most rainfall (usually springtime). They bloom for a short time and often open at night time when it's cooler. Cacti are hard for animals to eat, but birds and other animals like to live in holes in the trunks of tall cacti, just like they do in trees. One particular cactus, the Saguaro (say: su-WAR-oh) cactus, which only grows in the Sonoran desert (in Arizona and Mexico), can grow up to 50 feet tall. Certain kinds of woodpeckers make holes in Saguaros to nest in.

Even though cacti are a symbol of the desert for many people, they don't grow in all deserts! In fact, cacti are native to North and South America (before humans brought them into other parts of the world, they only grew on those continents).

Grasses, short bushes, and special types of trees also grow well in deserts. They grow far apart from each other though, because the soil doesn't have enough water for very many plants in one area. Grass and shrubs or bushes usually have roots that stretch out farther than the plant is tall to get as much water as possible when it rains.

Science Words

Arid- very dry, without enough water to keep trees and most types of plants alive and growing.

Evaporate- when water molecules warm up and change from a liquid into a gas.

Nocturnal- an animal that is most active at night and usually sleeps during the day.

Succulent- plants that store water in their stems, leaves, or roots. They are fleshy and full-looking.

Printable Worksheet

Use this worksheet to encourage imagination as well as scientific thought about desert life. Provide plain white paper and drawing utensils and let kids draw pictures of animals they think would live in a desert. Then help them cut and paste their artwork onto the printed worksheet to show which animals hide underground during the day and are active at night. They may also want to include plants, sand dunes, rocks, the sun, moon, etc.

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Desert Science Projects + Lesson for Early Elementary

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What You Need: 3 wet paper towels cookie sheet 2 paper clips sheet of waxed paper slightly bigger than a paper towel What You Do: Lay one wet paper towel flat on the cookie sheet. Roll the second wet paper towel up into a log shape.

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Thailand is made up of four interesting areas. It consists of mountains and forests where tigers and bears live. The deer and buffalo live on the grasslands that cover the slopes of the mountains. Another major area of Thailand is dry with very little crops able to thrive. It is the poorest of all the regions. The most rich region is consists of fertile soil and farmers are able to grow crops such as cotton, sugar, corn, tobacco and peanuts. The last area is mostly tropical with rainforests. It is unusual for a place to have such a variety of opportunities.

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Using their hands, have students mix together 4 cups of flour, 2 cups of salt, 2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar. I'm thinking this might be enough dough for two maps but am not sure.

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Example of how we could format instructions for technical writing on relief map

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Maybe the writing component of the relief map could be technical writing ? The students would write about the process they went through to create their map; transition words could be a mini lesson during this unit.

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Outline of map to trace for relief map project

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Asia is the largest continent, going from the Caucasus Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, north to the Arctic Ocean and south to the Indian Ocean. Draw in the Himalayas-the largest mountains on earth, making a barrier around India.

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Have you ever made 3D salt dough maps? We are getting ready for our school's International Week at our house, and I have volunteered to set-up tables for Ethiopia and Mexico, and also will contribute to the China table. This weekend we began to make some materials for our "touch tables." You might have seen 3D Salt Dough Maps before- they are made by mounting self-hardening dough onto cardboard, forming the mountains and other physical landforms, and then allowing it to dry so you can paint it. Kids (and adults!) learn just as much in the process- or more- than from the final product, and you end up with a beautiful, handmade display item that is just perfect for an International Week at school.

Step 1: Make the Dough for the Salt Dough Maps

Using their hands, have your kids mix together 4 cups of flour, 2 cups of salt, 2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar.

Step 2: Print, Cut Out the Outline, Trace the Country

Look on-line for printable maps: Eduplace has it organized by state, country, or continent. If you want to be able to print larger maps, I used YourChildLearns maps, where you can specify the map to fit on 1 page, 4 pages (2×2), 9 pages (3×3), up to 64 pages! That's a big map... and a lot of dough! We chose 4 pages, and taped them together, and cut them out. I realized that you don't have to be extremely careful cutting out the intricate bays and jagged coastline. Just have the kids do their best and it will turn out fine. Once it is cut out, trace the outline onto your cardboard, and remove the paper map.

Have your kids take balls of the dough and flatten them into the outline you have traced. I pulled up pictures of " physical maps " on my computer of their countries/continent so that could see the landforms. First make the map flat, and slowly build up the elevation according to the maps you find on-line.

Step 4: Paint the Salt Dough Maps According to the Elevation

When the dough is dry (ours took a couple of days because it was very humid here), it is time to paint. If you are making a physical map, as we did here, the different colors represent changes in elevation, and NOT vegetation. For example, green signifies lowlands, not tropical forests. Normally blue is water, green is the lowest land, yellow is climbing in elevation and brown is mountainous. The highest peaks of the mountains are sometimes red, purple, or white. Make sure to include important rivers and other bodies of water. Have your kids paint a "key" to tell the viewers what each color means for them.

There are different ways to finish the maps: some people like to place little pins in the dough before it has hardened to label landforms or major cities. Outside the salt dough maps on the cardboard, I might have my children label the countries that border their country. However you decide to do it, there is so much to learn while making the maps with your kids. My daughter was so impressed by the amount of mountains Mexico has, and she had to check our "real" physical map upstairs to see if the was adequately making a wide enough mountain range... My son loved to see the beginning of the Nile River in his home country of Ethiopia... My daughter loved to form the mountains on Madagascar, and asked how an island could have mountains. My other son wanted to know why China has a small peninsula coming off in the northwest (North and South Korea!).

As much as we learned, I am going to be honest about the best part of this project. Finishing it up, my 4 year old said "Mommy, I LOVE doing projects with you! And I love when they take a long time. Can we do it again??" Melts my heart. "Of course!! I'm going to think of an even longer one, just for you:)."

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Have you ever made 3D salt dough maps? We are getting ready for our school's International Week at our house, and I have volunteered to set-up tables for Ethiopia and Mexico, and also will contribute to the China table. This weekend we began to make some materials for our "touch tables."

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https://kidworldcitizen.org/2013/06/02/language-of-maps-kids-should-know/

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Though in the age of iPhones and GPSs we seem to be losing paper maps, I still love exploring maps, and believe kids need to learn map skills, and develop their geography awareness. Because of this I have many activities on Kid World Citizen to help parents and teachers teach children about maps. Kids not only can learn to read them, but to recognize their components and build their own maps. I was recently asked for a list of vocabulary or concepts of maps kids should learn. Here are the geographic terms- and their definitions- that I think are important for kids to be able to identify. Thank you creative commons for the images I was able to adapt!

Want the materials for this lesson?

Buy a full lesson plan about Map Vocabulary at the Kid World Citizen store at Teachers Pay Teachers!

The Map Vocabulary Lesson Plan features three activities that help students develop a strong foundation in the geographic terminology associated with maps.

Absolute Location vs Relative Location:

Absolute Location: describes the exact position of a point, often using latitude and longitude
"Kenya's latitude and longitude is 1° 00′ N and 38° 00′ E; that is 1° north of the equator, and 38° east of the prime meridian."
Relative Location: finds the location of a place using other surrounding places, or by using cardinal directions
"Kenya is south of Ethiopia, north of Tanzania, east of Uganda, and west of Somalia and the Indian Ocean."
Arctic Circle, Antarctic Circle:

Circles of latitude at 66°33 north (Arctic Circle) and 66°33 south (Antarctica Circle)

Axis

The imaginary line between the north and south poles, about which the Earth rotates

Cardinal Directions

The four cardinal points are north, south, east, and west

Compass Rose

A figure on maps to display the orientation of the cardinal directions

Coordinates

A set of values that show an exact position, for example how many degrees east of west of the prime meridian, and north or south of the equator; see the coordinates of famous world cities here or e nter a worldwide destination or famous worldwide attraction here, and the tool will give you the latitude and longitude coordinates!

Equator

An imaginary line around the globe, equally dividing the earth into the northern and southern hemisphere

Globe

A spherical representation of the earth ( learn how globes are made here)

Goode's Interrupted Homolosine

A type of map projection (above image) that tries to display the world with accurate sizes and locations of the continents (think of a flattened orange peel!); known as "Goode's"

Hemispheres

Half of the earth, either divided into northern and southern divided by the equator, or eastern and western divided by a meridian

Intermediate directions

The points that fall between the cardinal directions: Northeast (NE), southeast (SE), southwest (SW), and northwest (NW)

Latitude

The imaginary lines running parallel to the equator on the globe, showing the distance north or south of the equator; measured in degrees

Longitude

The imaginary lines running "up-down" on the globe, showing the distance east or west of the prime meridian; measured in degrees

Map Key/ Map Legend

Usually in a corner of the map, the "key" or "legend" is a small table of symbols that is used on the map, with their explanations

Map Projections

The different systems of transforming the locations on a sphere into a flat surface (plane)

Mercator Projection

A map projection (above image) that shows longitude and latitude at right angles; distorts the size and shape of large objects

Meridian; Prime Meridian

An imaginary, longitude line running from the North Pole to the South Pole; the Prime Meridian runs through Greenwich, England. The Prime Meridian is set at o° and divides the earth into the "Western Hemisphere" and the "Eastern Hemisphere"

North Pole/South Pole

North Pole: the northernmost point on the Earth, at 90° north; where the Earth's axis would meet the surface. The South Pole is found in the Arctic Ocean, 4,261 m (13,980 ft) below shifting sea ice.

South Pole: the southernmost point on Earth, at 90° south; where the Earth's axis would be the surface. The South Pole is found on Antarctica, a continental land mass.

Physical maps

The purpose of physical maps is to show geography of land types, bodies of water, and landforms such as deserts, mountains, and arctic regions; see above left image

Political maps

The purpose of political maps is to show territorial borders, major cities, and capitals; see above right image

Relief Map or "Raised Relief Map"

A two dimensional map using contour lines or colors to represent terrain and different altitudes; in a "raised" relief map, terrain is represented in 3D
Make your own 3D Salt Dough Map to learn about relief maps and geography (above right image)!
Tropic of Cancer; Tropic of Capricorn

Tropic of Cancer: the circle of latitude on the Earth that marks the most northerly position at which the Sun may appear directly overhead, at the June solstice. Slightly changing every year, in 2013 it lies around 23° 26′ north of the Equator.

Tropic of Capricorn: is the circle of latitude on the Earth that marks the most southerly latitude at which the Sun can be directly overhead, at the December solstice. Also changing slightly every year, in 2013 it lies around 23° 26 south of the Equator.

Winkle Tripel

A map projection adopted by the National Geographic Society as its standard world projection; most agree that it provides a good balance between size and shape of areas, though Arctic regions are distorted.
What map terms am I missing? Leave them in the comments and I will add them to the list!
Want the materials for this lesson?

Buy a full lesson plan about Map Vocabulary at the Kid World Citizen store at Teachers Pay Teachers!

The Map Vocabulary Lesson Plan features three activities that help students develop a strong foundation in the geographic terminology associated with maps.

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Though in the age of iPhones and GPSs we seem to be losing paper maps, I still love exploring maps, and believe kids need to learn map skills, and develop their geography awareness. Because of this I have many activities on Kid World Citizen to help parents and teachers teach children about maps.

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Top 10 Thai Food - Most Popular Thai Foods

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Thailand's food needs little introduction. From San Francisco to Sukhothai, its profusion of exotic flavours and fragrances make it among the most coveted of international cuisines. As a walk through Bangkok forcefully reminds, these flavours and fragrances are seemingly inexhaustible. However, whether it be juicy pieces