Customer Reviews

Me on the Map (Dragonfly Books)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My four year son and I love this book. I used this book and the mapping activities it inspires to teach my son our address. We basically recreated this book with all of its maps to establish my child's very special place on the map (his bedroom, our home, our street, our town, our state, etc.)

If you like this book, try also: Me and My Family Tree.

In all my years as an elementary school librarian, this has to be the best introduction to maps that I have seen for primary grades. It is written at a 1.7 reading level, which makes it accessible to first through third grades. In our school, the third grade teachers do a unit on communities, and this title ties in beautifully with that.

I like the way Joan Sweeney starts with, "This is me" and builds the concept through "my room," "my house," "my street," and on to town, state, country and the world. Then she goes backwards until she concludes with "...everybody has their own special place on the map. Just like me."

This book is a great one to share in the classroom as an introduction to mapping. It begins with a girl making a map of her room, her house, her street, etc. Followup activities in the classroom that work well are mapping a student's room, house, classroom, and school.

This book is simple yet engaging. My 4th grade students gained a deeper understanding of their location in this vast universe. They were able to follow the book's example and create their own personal map book. I believe this book should be a part of every elementary classroom.

Excellent book! Not only it teaches about maps (from the map of your room to the map of the world) and geography but it is also excellent for teaching about
* sequences and patterns (each page follows the same template, expanding from the room to the world)
* spacial rotation and visualization (a map is a view from above)
* abstract represntation (a map is a schematic view, a model, of the objects it represents)
* permancence, presistence, and the transient nature of objects and their location (what should be on the map? - toys, books, socks?)

My six year old daughter loved this book. The words were easy enough for her to read and the repetition reinforced her early reading skills. We used this book as an introduction to perspective, maps, and self-awareness. The pictures were fresh, clean, and uncluttered. We plan on getting the rest of the series.

I love this book. It helps kids relate the reality of their world to the world as a whole, It also helps them understand maps, which are really fairly abstract. It starts with a picture of a little girl in her room, and, on the facing page, her drawing of a "map of my room". Then it shows her house, and her "map of my house". Then the street, with the house on it, then the town, with the street on it, etc. The pictures zoom all the way out to a view of the Earth from space. My daughter loves it, and has drawn "maps" of her room, our house, etc. like those in the book

The idea for this book is great, and overall my girls (age 4 and 6) enjoy it. But the book is sloppy about distinguishing country versus continent. And I think the author and illustrator could have done a better job to help kids make the leap from the abstract, 2-D concept of maps to our 3-D world.

A very simplistic but impacting look at maps from a me/mine perspective beginning with her room, house, street... all the way to world and then back to room. The theme is "everyone has a special place in the world and this is how you'll find me"; using a map. The illustrations of the map are very vague in terms of detail, but gives a great relative perspective of the area it comprises. It will introduce the younger children and provide a more vivid explanation to the older ones. I would recommend ages K-4th grades.

My 3 year old was learning about her home address, neighborhood, city and state in pre-school and i was looking for an age appropriate book to supplement the teachers lessons. This book is excellent. It uses simple sentences and helps illustrate basic pre-school geography. The teacher even asked to borrow it.