Salt Maps and Baby Names

I love maps. Of all shapes, sizes, colors, and purposes. I especially love globes. I am now learning about a different sort of map--the salt dough map. For our first history group meeting, we bartered (as you already know) and we made a map of the fertile crescent. To prep, the day before I had my kids label and color paper maps using various maps in library books as a reference. Since all books about Mesopotamia discuss the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at length, and because of the hands-on nature of salt maps, after only two days of school my kids were pretty well-versed in the geography of the Fertile Crescent.

 In fact, my 3 year old pointed to a map today and said, "What is that?" I said, "The Fertile Crescent." To which he replied, "Oh, I thought it was the Tigris River." He was actually pointing at the river, I just glanced over casually and didn't realize he was being specific. (Yes, I'm bragging--my 3 year old is charming and smart!)

A week or so after making the salt dough maps, my children and I were discussing baby names (no, I'm not pregnant, but thinking up baby names is a family hobby of ours) and my oldest said, "We should have twins and name them Tigris and Euphrates!"  Ha ha.  Good one.

My point--I think making the salt dough maps really did imprint the information on my kids' brains better than just coloring paper maps.  

The dough took longer to dry than we expected so we painted them the next day.