Maps and Math in Years 3 and 4Before introducing Coordinate Systems you would introduce the idea of location and code

Then you can move on to describe coordinate systems and support student application

Then you can start to work up to how this relates to a map

You would then move from the idea of points (with no dimension) on a map to introduce lines (with one dimension – length).

Students can start to look at maps to describe best routes to and from one location to another.

You can then start them using something like Google Earth to look at locations (points) and paths (lines) in their locality. Using Google Earth would also introduce the concept of scale, we will work with scale shortly.

First, let us look at how students could draw a mud map, or bird’s eye view of a room to get them used to this view of the world.

And finally, before we look at scale introduce the idea of a map legend

Now you are ready to tackle the BIG maths question in maps – what about scale and how does that work?