Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson IX · Unit 2: Distance, pictures and plans
9. Written exercise: plans of your room, house and yard
Goal: Your child writes full-sentence answers about where their home (or school) is, and draws a scale plan of their own room and of the house and yard.
You'll need
- Tape measure
- Graph paper or plain paper, ruler and pencil
- Your N, S, E, W signs or a compass
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
Questions to answer in full sentences about the school's name, street, the way it faces, its rooms, and how far it is from home, with a plan of school grounds. Then drawing exercises: a plan of the schoolroom using one inch for ten feet, a plan of the teacher's table, a plan of the house and grounds, and a plan of your own room at home. A note warns that the top of a map is not always north.
The lesson, step by step
Questions about home
The book asks about the school. For a homeschool, ask the same about home, and have your child write the answers in full sentences: What is our address? On what street or road is our house? Which side of the street? Between what streets? In which direction does the front door face? How many rooms does it have?
A full sentence
Show your child how to turn a short answer into a sentence. "Maple Street" becomes "Our house is on Maple Street." For a younger child, write two or three answers together and let them copy one.
Plan of your own room
The book says:
Draw a plan of your own room at home, showing the table, bed, chairs, and other objects in it.
Measure the room's walls together. Choose a scale (for a page of notebook paper, one inch for two feet works well in a bedroom). Draw the walls first, then leave gaps for the door and windows, then add the bed, chair and other things as oblongs.
Face north
The book says to let children face north while drawing a plan of the grounds, with the top of the plan as the north side. Stand in the room facing north, and turn the paper so its top is toward north. Write N, S, E and W on the plan.
The yard
On another day (or now, if there is time), go outside and pace or measure the yard. Draw a plan of the house and yard showing its size and shape: the house, driveway, trees, garden bed, fence, swing. Use one inch for ten feet, as the book suggests.
Talk it over
Ask the book's oral questions: If the shape of a room is drawn on paper, what have we drawn? Is a plan the same as a picture? What is the use of a plan? Name some things you could draw a plan of.
Not always north on top
The book's own note says:
It is wrong to teach that the top of a map or plan is always north;
Turn your plan around and ask your child to find north on it again. Maps should always show which way north is.
Afterwards
Over a few days, finish the yard plan and color it. Then add the street in front and your neighbors' houses.
Tip
Graph paper makes scale drawing much easier: let one square stand for one foot.
Answers to the book's problems
A drawing of the shape of a room is a plan. A plan is not the same as a picture: it shows where things are and their direction from one another, as seen from above. Plans help us find our way, arrange furniture, and build houses. With one inch for ten feet, the book's 40-by-30-foot schoolroom becomes a plan 4 inches by 3 inches. Answers about your own home will be your own.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.