Activity of the Day: Treasure hunting extra help game- jigsaw map making

As promised in an earlier post, here is an extra treasure hunt game especially for people who are finding it hard to connect a drawn map to the real world.

We find that our struggling hunters are usually able to identify features on a map- for example, if it's blue it's water (or a motorway- yep, that one causes confusion!)

This game is a real challenge- and is requested as a repeat game, as it's difficult but achievable at different levels for the different struggling hunters.

You will need:

An A4 piece of paper
A smaller piece of card or paper (A5 is good)- plus extra just in case
A pencil
Scissors
Colours, if your hunters are keen on colouring things in

How to play:

With your hunters, choose a familiar place (yes, the jigsaw map above is the main room in our house).

Take your jigsaw making items to that place- you're going to stay there to make and complete this jigsaw.

Cut your card to about the right shape to match the place- we had to cut the card shorter as our room is closer to square than A5.

Place the card onto the paper, and draw around the card. Mark landmarks such as doors, windows, garage etc so that the marks show on the card and paper. The jigsaw pieces will all go in the outline on the paper once they're made.

Draw all the items in your chosen place onto the card in the right places relative to the place if possible- this will give your hunters a bit of extra help if they are watching and helping you. If items overlap in real life, you may need to draw some on an extra piece of card or squeeze them in to what would otherwise be empty space.

Write labels onto all the items with your hunters- so that they are able to read what the items are.

Cut out the items, and give them to your hunter along with the A4 sheet with the template on it. Your hunter can colour the items in if they like (we don't really have a pink book case and purple coffee table...).

Your hunter can then look around them and try to match places on the jigsaw to the places in real life, completing the jigsaw of the place as they go.

Using a room with some moveable furniture can be a real help: One of our struggling hunters is able to put items in the right place by talking through "what is the XXXX next to? And what else is it next to?", and build up the correct layout that way.

The other isn't able to make the connections between the pictures and the real world so easily, but found me moving furniture (not the book case...) around to the places SHE'D put it on her map hilariously funny, and was then able to "make" me put the furniture back in the right places in the real world by putting the items in the right place on her map. This did require a bit of heavy lifting!