Tiny Town

Materials:

• Paper or bags for covering table
• art supplies
• toy cars and figures (optional)

Just because they're sitting at the table doesn't mean kids can't take a trip. All they need is a map of their own! Cover the table with paper and provide art supplies, then suggest various elements that they might add to their surface map, like a lake, a river with a bridge, a forest, and roadways.

At the street level, your kids can add small squares to represent houses and buildings. They can also sketch in the office where you or your spouse work, their school, the library, and other important buildings.

Younger kids can bring in cars and figures and turn the drawing into a real tabletop town; older kids can continue the cartography by drawing a legend (e.g., circles represent trees, rectangles represent cars), directional indicators, and key statistics about the town (population, date founded, historical points, and so on).

This is one map you don't have to worry about folding: Just roll it up for a rainy day!

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Excerpted from:

© 2005 by Steve and Ruth Bennett. Excerpted from 365 Unplugged Family Fun Activities with permission of its publisher, Perseus Books Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

To order this book visit perseusbooksgroup.com.