JoyLand

This is JoyLand... and lots of fun! Joy and I started making JoyLand about a month ago with Play Doh. I had LOTS of Play Doh left from my teaching days, when I would use it to help kids remember things. For example, when we learned about the brain, I would have students model neurons, hemispheres, etc. while I presented the material.

Anyway, I got all the Play Doh out and told Joy we were going to make JoyLand, her OWN country! So we started forming mountains, valleys, mesas, oceans, plateaus, rivers, peninsulas, etc. She did NOT know what all of these were, of course! She has done some traveling, so she knew the basic mountains and valleys. We used to live by a ravine, so she knew that one. But many of the land and water forms were named by me, using the correct geographical names.

When we came back from vacation, JoyLand was all dried up and cracked apart. It was unusable... so we threw it away and started over with Crayola's Model Magic. We also built JoyLand on a plastic tray, so it would stay together better and be portable. MUCH better idea! :)

After the Model Magic dried, we painted everything, using glitter paint. Joy wanted JoyLand to sparkle! There was some negotiating about what was land and what was water until Joy finally realized that the lowest places had to be water. (That's a great learning to have in place!)


It was a project we did together, so I was able to paint in some rivers and lakes and to make sure we had a desert plateau. Joy wanted pink and purple mountains and  a purple mesa. In the process of discussing what we were painting, mesa became such a familiar word that she said a large plastic, flat-topped electrical plug was shaped like a mesa!

As we painted, we talked about the different land and water forms. I wasn't trying to get Joy to know them all! I just want her to hear their names and begin looking at the various forms. After the paint was dry, we are using it to play with Squinkies...

The Squinkies meet on top of the mesa, or slide down the tributaries into the main river and then the delta. They chase each other through the desert or hop across the islands. Joy loves it that I'm playing with her, and I love it that we're using vocabulary that will make geography easier for her as she advances in school!

Future plans for JoyLand include: Lots of  Squinkie play, making a map of JoyLand, adding on to JoyLand, and who knows where Joy's interests will lead!!

BTW, you don't have to go totally crazy, with a permanent "land" for your child, to work in landforms and water forms. As you explore your yard or neighborhood or vacation location, name the landforms and water forms you see. Use the words creek, brook, river, stream to describe various flowing waters. Talk about the shapes of various hills, mesas, mountains, etc. It's just a matter of fitting the academic language into your normal conversation! Have fun!