You can sneak a little summer learning into your next jaunt to the playground with this neat map project!

To start, I tucked a small ball into my purse as we headed off to play, and when we arrived, I told Travis his goal was to hide it some place sneaky while I wasn’t looking. Then he could draw a map so I could find it! Note: You can do this with just about any object other than a ball of course, but I don’t recommend small toys that could easily get lost.

He quickly took up the challenge, although his map turned out quite differently than I imagined. He stood in one spot, drew arrows for the steps I should take in each direction, and then X marked the spot!

Following his drawing, I retrieved the ball.

Now it was Travis’s turn to be the seeker instead of hider. I drew a very different map, with representations of slides, platforms, tunnels, and other playground structures. Sure enough, he quickly followed it to the hidden “treasure”.

Two friends can also take turns playing this game, or two siblings, simply alternating back and forth. Chances are that kids will want to play until the map paper runs out!