Davey really likes maps.  When we go to the zoo, he likes the animals, but he really prefers to look at the zoo map.  Before we moved to Ellensburg, David picked him up a fun map of the town, and he loved studying it until we moved here.  It’s now hanging on his wall.

So I thought he might enjoying making a topographic map.  I’d been searching for map activities on pinterest, and I came across a website with a recipe for salt dough and some guidelines for making a 3d map.  This included a link to yourchildlearns.com.  This is a cool website where you can print out maps in any size you want using 8.5 x 11 paper, and then you can tape them together to create your map.

I printed out a USA map, taped it down to some posterboard, and we mixed up the dough. Then we started forming our map by following the outline of the taped down map.

Davey had great fun making the mountains.  He got very tickled.  Let’s just say they are Davey mountains and not necessarily topographically accurate.

He identified the following mountain as Mt. Shasta (in Northern California).  It’s a little massive.

He ended up decreasing Mt Shasta’s size as we decided it would probably break when it dried.

Next we had to let the map dry so we could paint it.  I am glad I got a picture of Davey’s sculpted letters as they fell apart when they dried!

We kept it pretty simple when we painted it and limited our colors to blue, green and brown.  Davey was once again in charge of the mountains.

He strategically left parts of the mountains white for the snow.  He had fun painting.  So much so that he enthusiastically got a lot of paint all over him (thankfully, I’d had the sense to take off his shirt and have him put on old shorts before he started).  I tried to get pictures of him with the paint all over him, but he was being resistant.

Our USA is very green.  My Great Lakes are very small (I am missing a couple as well), and the Salt Lake may be overly large.  It was still great for helping Davey learn more about the US.  He identified where we live.  He pointed clear across the country to his Oma and Opa’s, and he found the almost center where his Nanny and Pa are.

Now we need to decide what country to try next!

I was looking around on pinterest yesterday and found a link to what I thought were the cutest little houses.

I had just picked up some popsicle sticks at Dollar Tree, and so Davey and I began gathering some sticks from the yard.  We had fun creating our own little house.

It’s a great craft because anything goes.  There’s no real plan, and we got to be creative although we did also have the to figure out logistics like how to make the walls attach to the floors etc.  This was challenging for my brain but fun, and it was a good challenge for Davey as well.  We haven’t tried to put our house up on stilts yet so that we can attach the ladder, but I liked our final result.

Davey sat down with me for quite awhile and worked on this little house.  He even made a “sun on a stick” which I forgot to attach.

BUT – while building stick houses with Mama is fine and dandy, it ain’t got nothin’ on archery with Daddy.

Davey has had so much fun playing with his little plastic bow with suction cup arrows, that David decided to get him an upgraded more sturdy bow.

They both had a good time shooting it.

Notice the dramatic fingers follow through demonstrated by both Davids.

Davey enjoyed showing me variations on his form as well.

Today they are creating new targets to shoot at!