Make Believe Map Craft
Little Sister loves all things pink, sparkly, and princess. Our creative preschool theme this week is Maps. Since she is very imaginative and loves pretend play, we decided to create a make believe map craft – a pink princess map according to her. It ended up being a super fun project to make together and showcases her love of imaginative play. We can’t wait to make more pretend maps!
Make Believe Map Craft
First, your map will need a name. I give Little Sister a few examples and she chose ‘The Land of Sparkle‘ and also wanted it to be a princess map with lots of pink. Recently, I stumbled across these fun printables for creating story rocks and thought they would be perfect for our make believe map craft. I printed the princess sheet and the knights sheet. There are also several others that would be perfect for a make believe map such as pirates, fairies, and mermaids.
You could make your map on construction paper, cardstock, poster board, etc. I happened to have a bunch of file folders on hand and grabbed one for our project. The day before, I precut all the graphics from the story rocks sheets.
We started with a sea and river which she happily painted. I asked her if she liked the name ‘Sparkling Sea‘ and she loved it. I asked her what she would like to call the river. She insisted that it be called the ‘Sparkling River.’ Then I gave her brown construction paper for her to create islands with. She named those the ‘Mystery Islands‘ which made me smile because it was such a clever name that she came up with all by herself.
Next, we grabbed all the graphics and decided where they would be placed. I also cut little triangles from a newspaper art project we made the day before to create an ‘Enchanted Forest.’ Behind the forest, I drew diamonds which she colored pink (of course… lol) and wrote the ‘Valley of Diamonds.’ I took the same newspaper art and had her cut 2 pieces to create gardens. She chose to place the bigger piece near the Sparkling Sea and I had her glue on the rose and door graphic. On this, I wrote ‘Secret Garden.’ She chose a spot for the other cut piece and named that the ‘Fairy Garden.’
By the castle I wrote ‘Pink Palace‘ which had a ‘Princess Training‘ area next to it represented with a tiara. The bridge is name ‘Sparkle Bridge‘ and when you cross it, it takes you to the Fairy Garden and the ‘Dragon Lair‘ which Little Sister cut a piece of brown construction paper to represent a cave. She also placed the frog inside the Sparkling Sea (a.k.a. Prince Charming).
I used a paintbrush and glue to create paths all throughout the map connecting the areas we created. We covered the glue with pink star glitter and silver glitter. The glitter also ended up all throughout the map which was perfect since it was named the ‘Land of Sparkle‘ …. tee, hee.
The rest of the areas were filled in with stamps and coloring marks. For example, little pink grass strokes represented the ‘Magical Field of Pink‘ and green grass strokes represented ‘Unicorn Meadows.’ The stamped flowers represented different gardens: Princess Gardens, Storybook Gardens, and Butterfly Garden. The mushroom house was named the ‘Village of Gnomes.’
The knight and sword represented the ‘Knight Training‘ area and the well represented the ‘Wishing Well.’ This was exciting for her since her Disney Princess game for the Wii has a wishing well in it. She also chose a spot on the path for the carriage.
What would your little ones name their make believe map?
More Map Activities for Kids
We would love for you to check out the map activities our creative preschool buddies did this week! Come back in 2 weeks for our next theme which is FLOWERS.
Alphabet Ocean Hunt + a free alphabet ship printable | I Heart Crafty Things
World Map Activities + free printable | A Little Pinch of Perfect
Map Learning Activities with Planes | Pink Stripey Socks
Visual Mind Mapping for Kids | Hand Made Kids Art
I just love this idea! Thank you for sharing. We homeschool and we needed a fresh new project and this is just the thing! Thank you!
You’re welcome! Thanks!