Pirate Treasure Maps

Grade 7-9 students made these detailed treasure maps.

I saw this lesson on a Canadian arts & crafts TV show, "Art Zooka", early one morning when I was home sick from work!

 

Here is the lesson plan: http://www.cbc.ca/artzooka/media/makes/Episode12Makes1.pdf

First they sketched a plan. They were encouraged to include a compass rose, a pirate ship, a Jolly Roger flag, a path and 'X' for the treasure and a scroll with some sort of title. Many kids thought up a theme for their map. They had to also think of unusual names for all the features/obstacles on the island.

Then they drew a good copy on thin white drawing paper and outlined it all in fine tip permanent marker.

 Then colored it with pencil crayons- I encouraged them to press hard and use

shading and value changes for extra realism...

Finally, they cut the edges unevenly, some tore them and then we tea (regular black tea bags) stained them all and crumpled them up to make them look two hundred years old.

Some finished maps- I love all the detail in these!!  Click on each one to view it up close.