Monday – Today in Sprout, the Sprouters were introduced to our theme of the week: Imaginary Realms!  We have two literature circles going: one group is reading The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and the other group is exploring picture books that align with our theme.  Today’s book was Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.  Both groups were very excited to receive journals to take notes, answer questions, and make predictions about the text.

Today the group explored mapping skills.  We looked at real maps for the whole world, smaller maps of states, even smaller maps of cities, and then of neighborhoods.  We then created a list of items that we saw on several of the maps including a rose compass, a key, a distance scale, and a title.  We observed the way different landforms are shown on a map and how those are incorporated into the map.  Then we looked at maps from other realms.  We saw how almost picturesque these maps were and how they outlined many important landmarks in the world.

Then everyone set off to create their own world beginning with a map.  Who would be in this world? What landmarks would there be?  What landforms would be included?  The results were amazing (as always)!  We have a land of princess filled with castles and bridges.  We have a circular land, a land in the air, a land for 6 legged creatures, and so much more.  Within each map the Sprouters were asked to add the elements from a real map: key, scale, title and compass (some chose to change the names of the directions, so you will not see the traditional north, south, east, and west).