It’s that time of year when School vacation is upon us. Some of you are already on vacation while others are just finishing up the last classes! I hope you had a good school year.  

One of my favorite places to visit in the summer is Cape Cod....

This week our cartography project is extra fun and interesting! Many of us have heard about the giant tortoises that inhabit the Galapagos Islands. Many of us, as I was, might not be exactly sure where these volcanic islands are located....

All of the maps were great -- super job, kids!   And the BASIC MAP SKILLS map (Oceanside), shown here even had extra details, like streets, drawn in!

Today we heard from a University professor who was coordinating summer homework for local elementary schools.... 

We noticed in the blog entries so far we have been focusing on several cold-blooded types-- so this week we expanded the search for something a little warmer!

Share our excitement for the Malayan Sun Bear who happens to be the smallest member of the bear family.  

Martin Luther King was born in the city of Atlanta, Georgia in 1929.  He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968.  

Take time to remember -- and learn about -- his vocation.  Be inspired by his dreams.  

Visit this National Park Service commemorative site for teaching tips.
 

The threat of more flooding is still a mammoth problem even as the waters recede slightly this week. Over 70 towns have been affected, with great loss of property and human life.

Studying this widespread disaster points out how geography is linked to our everyday lives.  Terms related to geography come up continually when studying this flood disaster that affected over 200,00 people.

One super-interesting job is that of CARTOGRAPHER! Use our large desk-top size maps to give your kids a chance to feel what it is like to make a map! Not only do students ENJOY working on our maps, but they LEARN easily at the same time.

LARGE MAPS are perfect for SMALL HANDS!
LABELING inspires REMEMBERING!
DRAWING IN PHYSICAL FEATURES makes GEOGRAPHY FUN!
USING A MAP KEY helps teach SYMBOLS!
COLORING AND SHADING is CARTOGRAPHIC ARTISTRY!

For instance, our AFRICA map is a great map for all grades of STUDENT CARTOGRAPHERS.

The map does not have a copyright date, so it took a little sleuthing to figure out when it was drawn!  

We make our own maps, we encourage students to be cartographers by using our activity maps, and we search out the maps of others! We love hearing about map collectors (more about that in a future blog post!) and we like seeing how others present a view of the world through different scientific and artistic map efforts.

We own and appreciate several of the wonderful maps published by the National Park Service of the United States. 

The Moray Eel is not really an eel, but a thick skinned leathery fish who lives in the coral reefs and rocky areas of warm water oceans.  

This workshop is always one of my favorites. One of the most fun parts is discussing the role of cartography and all the wonderful maps that came out of the age of exploration....

Here at the office of Maps for the Classroom you can find us by a RIVER!  

From our two windows, where we pack and send your map orders, we can see the SEEKONK RIVER! It flows into the nearby PROVIDENCE RIVER.  This river flows into NARRAGANSETT BAY.

NARRAGANSETT BAY is..... 

We scrambled around (in a lizard-like fashion?) to see if we could learn more about this amazing creature, THE TUATARA! The home of this little-known animal is New Zealand. This country of islands, small and large, is located in the Pacific Ocean. It is also home to many other odd and unusual creatures, like the weta, which is a BIG cricket-like creature, and the kiwi, a bird that does not fly, and the Skink-- certainly an animal with a great name!

The TUATARA is a spiny-backed animal that has been around longer than the dinosaurs!

We at CartoCraze/Maps for the Classroom would like to announce our first contest! We would like to see a finished version of a CartoCraze Map from your class. Map entries will be judged on neatness, attention to detail, and geographic and artistic additions of your own. The classroom with the winning entry will receive 25 free maps of their choice from the Maps for the Classroom map list (our 16 x 20 desktop size maps).

OK, here are the rules . . .

GREENLAND is the largest island on Planet Earth that is not a continent! Some countries are made up of individual islands: for an example see our CartoCraze feature on the PHILIPPINE Tarsier. Some islands are famous only in imagination, like the suspenseful TREASURE ISLAND, written by the well-known author Robert Louis Stevenson, whose 160th birthday was celebrated just last week. We like those tiny person-size islands that are so small that we can kayak to them and take a summer nap!

The office of CartoCraze and Maps for the Classroom is located in the smallest state in the United State -- Rhode Island! The curious thing is that Rhode Island is NOT an island at all!

Maybe because we just celebrated Halloween we have him in mind. Bats are often associated with Halloween, due to one of the most well known species, the vampire bat! But oddly enough, only 3 species out of almost 1,000 kinds of bats actually drink blood.

We’ve done a little research about bats -- fun to do! -- and discovered why they are so intriguing. Here are some interesting facts-- and some questions too, to make you think about bats. Define any words you may not know and build your vocabulary!  See the following....

The ancient Romans had an festival of the DEAD called Parentalia.... and the ancient Celts  celebrated Samhain, where they wore masks and costumes to avoid the EVILS SPiRITS!

Can you locate on a map where these people performed their somewhat scary holiday rituals?

Did they eat CANDY?!?!   Enjoy!  And stay SAFE!

Turtles are very well-known animals. Roughly three hundred species of turtles live in almost every habitat on earth except in polar or very cold areas.

Many of us have had the opportunity to see turtles up-close! How many of you have held a turtle? Maybe you have seen one in your backyard or a park, or crossing a street?

This week we are want to present the geographic term CAPE! A CAPE is a piece of land that juts out into a body of water, usually a sea or ocean. Sometimes this piece of land frames one side of a smaller body of water.

The term CAPE came to mind because we just added a unit to CartoCraze about the famous explorer Vasco Da Gama! This bold traveler sailed around the CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, at the south of the continent of Africa. 

Since many schools study the explorers in the month of October, we would like to recommend THE EXPLORER ATLAS, copyright 2006 by Orpheus Books Limited, published by the Hammond World Atlas Corporation (the Hammond Company, by the way, has published many wonderful atlases over many, many years).

Columbus is most famous for his voyage that set sail in 1492 with three ships: the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina.  Traveling with his large crew, he reached the Bahaman Islands and believed he had reached Asia.  He called the inhabitants “Indians”.  He also explored Cuba and other islands.

The tarsier can be found on the Philippine islands of Bohol, Samar, Leyte and Mindanao.  One of the world's smallest primates, it is a close relative of lemurs, lorises and bushbabies. Other tarsier relatives . . .

Enhance and expand your lesson plans with our wide range of topics.  See . . .

That's what we're hoping for - to inspire and provide a fun medium for children to study and explore geography and cartography!

We all know how much kids love to draw and color, and a map is a perfect tool to combine that and geographic knowledge. A great way . . .  

Our philosophy has always been to present geography through cartography. We feel this method helps the students learn and retain the knowledge better.

Our large desktop size maps have allowed us to ....