Map Skills Social Studies Unit for Second Grade

This Location and Map Skills Social Studies Unit teaches students about North American landforms, urban, rural, and suburban communities, grid maps, and family history. It is a perfect unit for first, second, and third grades and works well with English learners.

Location, Location, Location.  Isn’t that what we hear when buying a house? Well, now, students will learn all about maps, communities, and family history in this unit.  This unit follows the California Second Grade Social Studies Standards but is not specific to California and can be used in any state.

This map skills unit complements my Long Ago & Now Social Studies Unit, written with a similar set of scaffolding strategies. The Long Ago & Now Unit also focuses on comparing and contrasting, but things today vs. long ago.  Both units are part of a Social Studies BUNDLE, as well.

What is Included in this Map Skills Social Studies Unit

Included in this unit are four sections:

• Letter Number Grid Maps
• Map of North America
• Where Did Your Ancestors Live
• Rural, Urban and Suburban Communities

Letter Number Grid Map Skills

In the first students learn to locate specific locations and geographic features in their classroom and school on a simple letter-number grid map.

Classroom Map

Students and the teacher work together to create a classroom grid and discuss the placement of furniture in their classroom. I draw the grid on a large piece of butcher paper and with the included furniture templates, we talk about where to place the classroom furniture.

Here’s what my classroom looks like sans desks.  Students then write their names on a template of their desk and we place the desks on the grid.

Using the classroom map, we ask and answer questions about the map.  I have students ask and answer questions as a whole group first.  Then I use a think-pair-share routine and students ask and answer questions of each other.  The goal is to develop oral language around discussing locations on a grid map.  We do a lot of practice with naming a location.

School Map

After we complete the classroom map, I present students with a map of our school.  We use the same routine of asking and answering questions and I design this as a think-pair-share-swap.  Students rotate around the room, find a partner, ask their question, then swap the questions and find a new partner. Here are some examples of the questions for the swap.

I’ve also included a worksheet where students answer questions in written form.

More letter-number grid practice

To provide students with even more practice, worksheets are included with varying degrees of difficulty. Here are a few examples.

Map of North America

I do this next activity in several ways.  In the early days, I used construction paper and we would cut mountains, rivers, etc. out of paper and glue them to a North America map template.  Now I provide students with a blank map below.  We discuss the legend and symbols that can be used for rivers and mountains.  I tell students where major landforms are located and we draw them on the map.  Students then use the included labels to identify major landforms in North America.  We discuss map features during this time, as well.

Where Did Your Ancestors Live

This is a fun activity that can be completed little-by-little over several days.  Toward the beginning of our map skills unit, I send home this parent letter that asks parents to help their child learn about where their ancestors came from.  Student or parents write answers to the questions.

At some point during the unit, I have students reflect individually on where their ancestors lived and locate that place on a map.

As a class, we discuss each individual’s family and mark the location on a class map. This makes a great community building activity.  It’s fun to see where every students’ family used to live.

Rural, Urban, and Suburban Communities

This unit is highly scaffolded so that even our most fragile students can find success through the use of vocabulary cards and sentence frames. For instance, in the Rural, Urban, and Suburban section, students first learn to describe each environment with words.  They then write a description and a comparative paragraph (or sentence).

Sentence frames are provided for both the description and comparative paragraph.  Use as little or as much scaffolding as you need for your students.

I generally create anchor charts of most of these graphic organizers.  For the one above, we will read different articles or magazines that describe the different communities.  As we read details about each community, I will record it on the anchor chart and students will record details on their sheets.

At some point in the unit, I ask students to choose two communities to compare and contrast.  I model this using a Venn diagram and students complete their own Venn diagrams of their chosen communities.

I provide students with different writing sheets based on their writing level.  My lowest students have sheets with one sentence (not pictured).  My grade level students generally receive sheets like the one above, with scaffolded sentence frames.  After filling in the sentence frames, students are more equipped to writing a paragraph that combines the sentence frames (see below). I vary the complexity of the writing every year, depending on the needs and ability levels of my students.  This is generally the second time students have used compare and contrast in nonfiction text this year.

How to Scaffold the Describing and Comparing and Contrasting

Here is a sample of some of the anchor charts that we use in our classroom.  We brainstorm a list of words for each environment. Forgive the messiness of the anchor charts.  It was created with students and these are all these are all of their ideas on the list.

From this list, we discuss how to accurately describe the attributes.  For instance, one student had given me the word “buildings” for Urban.  We discussed how all three environments have buildings but clarified the type of buildings in an Urban environment.

After making lists of words for each environment, we start creating our sentences.  We list words under are/have to help students create sentences and I also provide sentence frames.  Initially, we do a lot of oral practice activities with the sentences.  Then we take it to writing, as shown above.

How to Purchase the Map Skills Unit

The Location, Location, Location unit can be purchased on my website or on Teachers Pay Teachers.  it is also part of a larger Social Studies Unit BUNDLE.

Other Social Studies Units that are available:

• Long Ago & Now
• Biography Reports with QR Codes
• Laws and Interactions