My map

Is it a good fit?

• Ready if Your child can find a toy when you tell them it is under the bed or on the chair.
• Too much today? The Pre-K level: three finds from one word, then your child hides the Pet.
• Too easy? The Grade 1–2 level: the same room drawn from above, with a legend your child makes and a route walked in order.

What your child practises

• Under, behind, on and in
• Saying a whole sentence
• A room seen from above
• Making a legend

Your part

• Nothing to prepare or print
• Each question has a Read it to me button
• At Kindergarten, be nearby: your child says a whole sentence out loud to you, and nothing about your home is stored

Take it off the screen (optional)

Draw your child's room from above on paper with crayons, a symbol for the bed and the toy box, and a legend to say what each one means.

More like this

• Me on the map
• Treasure walk
• Animal atlas

The full design

What it is

Hide and seek in a painted bedroom, with the words that say where: under, behind, on, in. The Pet hides and tells your child where in one of those words; your child taps the place, the Pet walks out of it, and then says the word back. Later the same room is drawn from above and your child makes its legend and walks a route across it. This is how maps begin: first the words for where things are, then a picture of the room seen from the ceiling.

How it goes

The Pet says "I am under something soft where you sleep" from the doorway. Your child taps the bed and the Pet walks to the gap beneath it. Four word cards appear, each with a small drawing of what the word means, and your child taps Under. A wrong place gets a question ("Is the cupboard soft?"), never a cross. At K the sentence appears on the screen to be read to you. At 1–2 the shape lands on the map and in the legend, and the route is drawn in coral as far as it has been walked. Leave in the middle and the game offers to carry on where you were.

The Pet

Asks the clue and, if the room goes quiet, "Look low. I am under something." Notices: "You said under. That is exactly right." At K it remembers the last hiding place in the same sitting: "Last time you hid me under the rug. Somewhere new?" Dares (K): hide it somewhere new and say it; (1–2): walk it from the door to the window.

By band

Pre-K: three finds from a word (under the bed, behind the curtain, on the chair), then your child hides the Pet anywhere and picks a word that fits. K: your child hides the Pet three times, picks the word, and says the whole sentence out loud to you ("Ziggy is under the rug"); one tap says they said it. 1–2: the same room drawn from above; your child gives the bed, the table and the toy box a symbol each (any shape, there is no wrong one), then walks the Pet from the door to the toy box in order: the rug, the table, the box.

What it grows

Geography before school is spatial language and treasure hunts: under, behind, on and in, said about real things, come before any map. Map-making starts with a known place drawn from above with symbols the child chose, which is exactly the 1–2 rung.

Done, and what counts as evidence

Done = the rung's rounds played. The evidence is what was said and made: the words your child chose, the sentence said out loud at K, and at 1–2 the legend. The real work sample is the follow-on: your child's own room, or the whole home, drawn from above on paper with a legend.

What's personal

The hiding places and the words are your child's choices; at K the sentence is said to you, not typed, and nothing about your home is stored. The painted room is every child's room for now; your own rooms are a later step.

Find more

• Homeschool geography activities, Pre-K to Grade 8
• Homeschool activities for Pre-K
• Homeschool activities for Kindergarten
• Homeschool activities for Grades 1 and 2
• Guides