I have never used salt dough maps before but received this email from one of the bloggers I follow and decided why not. We are really delving inot Geography for the first time this year and it seemed like a wonderful way to encourage my hands on learners and teach them at the same time. Salt dough maps are easy and very inexpensive, two things I love as a single home-school mother. We decided to make the salt dough map at the beginning of your history studies on Greece hoping my kids will get a good feel of “lay of the land.” History and Geography makes more sense and is easier to grasp when your kids know were things are. My kids had a blast making these and beg to do more. This is definitely something we will incorporate into each lesson as we learn about new places. (This recipe was taken from Hands-On Geography and the WonderMaps teacher’s guide.)
Materials for Salt Dough:
- 2 cups flour
- 1 cup salt
- Water: enough to make dough sticky, but workable
- Salt dough maps take much longer to dry on wet or muggy days.
- After map dries, take a picture of it. Salt dough maps don’t save well, but pictures do!
4 cups of flour
2 cups of salt
2 cups of water
2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
Mix with your hands (that's the fun part) until the consistency of playdough. Add more water or flour as necessary.
2 cups of salt
2 cups of water
2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
Mix with your hands (that's the fun part) until the consistency of playdough. Add more water or flour as necessary.
How to Make a Salt Dough Map
First you need an outline map. Here are my two absolute favorite online map sources:
1. Education Place Outline Maps
2. World Atlas Maps
3. For FREE blank flag templates for your salt dough map, click HERE.
1. Education Place Outline Maps
2. World Atlas Maps
3. For FREE blank flag templates for your salt dough map, click HERE.
Put the outline onto a sturdy base of cardboard. We chose to cut out our map and affix it directly to the cardboard. You could draw an outline onto the cardboard, or use carbon paper to trace the outline on from a printed map.Then you can add your physical features such as rivers, mountains, capitols, etc..whatever you can think of. Then you can paint your physical features the appropriate colors.
Pictures coming soon!
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