Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Map of the western states by Alex

Alex made this map as the start of his project on the western states. He was supposed to make a relief map from cookie dough and then bake it... but due to an unfortunate incident involving leaving cookies to bake in the oven while he went to his friends house last week, he is grounded from the stove. My friend Sarah Jean brought me the answer to the dilemma for Valentine's Day... she made my kids all playdough. So I had Alex make his map out of that.

First, he traced the entire area (including all the states) onto a piece of paper. Then made a 'mold' out of a piece of cardboard. He used the mold to get the general shape of the area and then put his paper onto the molded clay he had made. Then he cut out each state and added all major geographical landmarks.

He sat there and did this for hours. Seriously, he took 4 hours to do this start to finish with one break for breakfast.

And in public school, this kid was "ADHD" and "needed medication".

Blows my mind.

Fun thing for today... found on Mom Is Teaching:

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Neat map!
I am enjoying your playlist...cute songs!

Sarah said...

I forgot to comment when I read the first time....his work is great and the focus he had sound like the best part!

sarah in the woods said...

This map idea is great! Your son did wonderful. I don't know why I'm just now finding this blog of yours, but I'm glad I did.

Dawn said...

Alex, you did a wonderful job. I will have to show this to my son, because he loves maps.