A Social Studies Lesson Plan using Google Maps

View Social Studies Lesson- Walking for Ice Cream in a larger map

As soon as the weather gets nice in the spring, we have a social studies lesson where we walk to a local ice cream parlor.  Along the way I have students point out safety features like traffic lights,  stop signs and crosswalks.  Every time we stop we discuss why we need each of these features to keep us safe.  Also I have them determine the weather conditions as a tie in for our science learning on weather.   Each student is given a map where they draw in the stop signs and traffic lights and circle what the weather condition was.  After the trip each student illustrates a picture and writes a sentence using proper punctuation describing their trip to get ice cream.   

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=213837021522119836791.0004a53a1c19be5538860&ll=42.086949,-86.443455&spn=0.01094,0.01929&z=16