Map My Community

Map My Community is part of the new “Mapping My World” series from Crabtree Publishing. Author Harriet Brundle has written all four books in the series: Map My Community, Map My Planet, Map My Country and Map My School.

Each book follows a consistent format but uses different illustrations to reflect the content focus. The opening chapters explain what a map is, how to use a map, what a map legend is, and how to use a map scale. Each book in the series then explores different aspects of a specific type of map.

Map My Community focuses on community maps with chapters including Mapping My Community, Points of Interest in a Community, and Who Would Use a Street Map?

Each book concludes with a mapping activity. The activity in Map My Community begins by asking students to “get a parent or caregiver to take you around the street surrounding your house”. Students then draw the streets and identify their houses and the houses of their friends, create symbols for points of interest and a legend, and add a title and a compass rose. The activity concludes with the question, “What points of interest would you add to your community if you could?”

Map My Community includes a table of contents, and a simple glossary and index. Illustrations are very colorful and the large clear font makes the text very legible for young readers.

I highly recommend Map My Community for young readers learning about maps for the first time with assistance and for slightly older students exploring maps in more depth independently.