brown paper. crayons. pencils. and imagination.

Yesterday, I came down into the living room to discover large paper bags — those outdoor super-heavy-duty-paper jumbo-sized sacks — cut in half, opened up, and flipped over to the brown side without words.

There were crayons out. And pencils.

And tons of imagination.

Brennan had read about map making in this reading prompt story book. It recommended getting just a paper bag and opening it up and then drawing your map. Big sister, Chloe, saw the project, and being ever creative went into the garage to grab one of those huge paper sacks for her brothers.

Then she gathered them up. And they started drawing.

We were supposed to be doing math. Not map-making.

I heard them talking about how George Washington was a surveyor before he was President. They talked about how he made maps just like they were doing, and went to the Ohio River Valley, and how he came back to Mount Vernon with a huge collection of maps.

All while they made maps. Even though, again, we were supposed to be doing math.

Brennan decided to add the Atlantic Ocean. Spelled Atlentik. And a red X marks the spot.

And Caleb added the compass rose.

While, on the other side of the room, Samuel, Elijah, and Chloe worked on their own rendition — ship, and dragons, and lots and lots of scribbles.

Samuel really got into it.

He’s serious about his map-making coloring.

Look at them. Content. Writing. Learning.

All with brown paper, crayons, paper and lots of imagination.

And freedom to create.

It’s an easy project — grab a paper bag or a roll of brown postal paper {worth investing in for projects just like this}, cut it open flip it inside out, give them crayons, pencils, or markers, and let them draw a map. You could show them basic map symbols — the compass, trees, etc — or find a book with maps for inspiration.  My kids? Worked on their maps for over an hour. 🙂

The book that inspired this creative venture was Kids Write!: Fantasy & Sci Fi, Mystery, Autobiography, Adventure & More! (Williamson Kids Can! Series) {affiliate link}.