A Maptastic Crafty Activity

The photo and ideas in this post are not my own. I have provided a link to the original blog post below.

Dear Zoo,

My all time favourite thing is making up fun activities to do with small (or any size) peeps that involves getting crafty. Yuss. That’s the business. Sometimes though, other people have terrific ideas and there is no point reinventing the wheel. I saw this idea on the blog Se7en. In short: make a big map on a very large piece of paper, cut into sections and distribute, get the kiddies to decorate their section with ace map features and get it looking all snazzy, stick the pieces back together WAH-LAH – a map! So cool!

Here is the link to the full blog post where they also made sail boats!

Map making on Se7en.

Yours on a dreary Sunday,

Laura

Currently Reading

We came to a clearing that was some kind of humming-bean camp on the shore of the lake. Through the last grass stalks we saw two houses on wheels and a small fabric house pinned to the earth with poles and ropes. There were no humming-beans to be seen, but some of their coloured skins were hanging on a line between the two houses on wheels. The lake was as Delta had described it, calm and bright blue, with a shore on the other side at a distance of one city street – not far at all. – Spinnaker Rat

Dear Zoo,

I can guarantee you a few things about my life. I’m easily wooed by salted caramel chocolate or a hot cup of tea. Any space I inhabit will soon have at least four piles of books on various vacant surfaces and I’m a sucker for a good story about animals. I’m just a sucker for a good story generally, but if you can make a family of rats endearing, feisty and witty then you’re really onto something.

I’m currently reading The Road to Ratenburg by Joy Cowley. I love – massively – that as a grown person I can still read a published-this-year Joy Cowley book. I read many as a child and the fact that she is still writing excellent books makes me very happy. Also, the fact that I am actually reading this because ITS MY JOB is kind of ace. I love her writing and the wee excerpt above shows this well, the fabric house had me all heart-eyes-emoji.

I just finished reading Brian Selznick’s The Marvels, also ace. I would like to read all of his recent novels but I think I might be going about it slightly backward. I’m going to read Wonderstruck next and then Hugo Cabret. I really like Selznick’s style: it’s hard not to fall headlong into a story when the first part is told through pictures. I think this is great for young readers because you feel very industrious reading in the style, its easy to make progress which as we all know, is tremendously satisfying.

What are you reading?

Yours with her nose in a book,

Laura