World-Building Made Easy 🗺 (+ sponge boats)

activities to close our week on how life is an adventure

Hello! For this week’s activity, we’re going to dream of faraway adventures and make maps and boats!

Creating a Fantasy Map

Fantasy writer Andrew Peterson said in an interview, “One of the most fascinating and attractive things about Middle Earth is the massive amount of detail and history Tolkien created to undergird the stories. It seemed clear to me that the first step in writing a fantasy novel was to build the world, to say in essence to the blank piece of paper, ‘Let there be light.’”

If you’ve read Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga (or watched some of the animated series!) you can see how creating a map of the world of Aerwiar helped breathe life into its continents and the people who lived in them. Sometimes you don’t need to start with a story; you need to start with a place, then the characters and their stories will fill it.

Below is his map of Aerwiar (which we have a large copy of in our home 🤓)

from the Wingfeather Saga website

Want to make your own and see what happens? Here are some tools for making maps of imaginary worlds with your kids!

First, here are a couple printables from a design asset we bought the rights to for you:

If you don’t have a printer, you can get a copy printed by Staples or CVS for about 30 cents!

All you have to do is give your kids paper—maybe two pieces glued together, or a half-posterboard—and Sharpies or pens! Play inspirational music such as the Howard Shore soundtrack for The Hobbit while everyone creates. They can use sharpies to draw continents and use watercolors to quickly paint oceans, forests, and deserts. If they feel overwhelmed, there’s no shame in drawing some continent shapes to help them get started.

You can sneak in some geography lessons and teach them about different landforms and the existence of national boundaries. But the main goal of this is to open up the child’s imagination and let them dream and create.

You might be surprised by how much of a hit mapmaking is with kids of all ages. The feedback we got from the kids who tried this activity was stellar. Some questions you can ask while the kids are making their maps:

• Where does that bridge lead?

• What’s the name of this continent?

• Does the king of this land live in that castle? Is he a kind and generous king?

• What used to be here before it became ruins?

• Who is buried in that graveyard?

• What’s the weather like in this area?

• What types of food grow here?

One last thing: don’t forget that word with. Your kids want to see what fantasy worlds you come up with, too. Enjoy. 😊

Sponge Boats

Younger kids might be more interested in making boats for an adventure at sea!

It’s super simple. Just give them a piece of paper—we used watercolor paper—and let them decorate it however they want. You might want to add their initial on it to represent the nation from which the ship is voyaging 😉

Then take a sponge and poke a hole in it with a skewer for the mast. People elsewhere on the internet have used straws!

Finally, attach your sail to your mast. You can use tape, hot glue, or stab slits with a knife and slide your skewer through.

Then, in a bathtub, creek, pool, or just a container filled with water, try floating your boat! The kids even added little characters to see if they would float.

I hope you liked these ideas. May your children (and you!) dream of brave adventures. And who knows? Maybe the map you make today will spawn one of the most epic stories of the century. Please send me a copy if so 🥰

Have a wonderful weekend.

Warmly,

Hope from Family Scripts

P.S. This would be a great one to send a friend or post on your social media! Thank you so much for sharing Family Scripts.