What is a map key for?

A map has to fit a whole area onto one sheet, so it uses a small mark for each kind of thing rather than drawing it. The key is the list of what those marks mean, and reading it is the first thing to do with any map.

What is a contour line?

A line joining up everywhere that is the same height above sea level. The number written on it is that height, and lines close together mean the ground is steep.

What is the difference between a footpath and a bridleway?

Who may use it. A public footpath is for walking; a bridleway is for walking, riding a horse and cycling. On a map they are both dashed lines, and the bridleway's dashes are longer.

Is the map a real place?

No. It is a map extract drawn for this board, with the eight symbols put where they would really be: the church in the village, the car park beside the road, the trig pillar on the summit inside the highest contour. Everything on it is our own drawing, so nothing here reproduces anybody else's cartography.

Are these the real Ordnance Survey symbols?

No, and they are not meant to be. They are our own drawings of the conventional symbols, so a class learns what the marks mean without this board copying somebody else's artwork. On a real OS map the same things appear as their own small glyphs, printed in the key at the side.

Map Key

Geography · Year 3–Year 6

Match the symbols to their meanings, then find them on a map.

About the map key

Eight symbols on the tray and eight meanings in the key. Drag each symbol next to what it means, and when they are all down the board says whether they are in the right places.

Then there is a second board: the same eight symbols on a map extract, with a village, a wood, a river, a road, a grid and the contours of a hill. Tap a symbol to name it where it stands, which is what a class has to do with a real sheet: the key tells you what a mark means, and the map is where you have to find it.

Nothing is marked wrong. Once every row is full, the symbols that are not in their own row are ringed so a class can move them, and the board names the first one and says what that symbol actually means. There is no score, nothing is timed, and the word wrong is not on the board.

The symbols are our own drawings of the conventional set rather than copies of anybody's artwork, and nothing on the board borrows the Ordnance Survey name for them. What a class learns is the same either way: dashes are a path you may walk on, a triangle with a dot is a measured hilltop, a brown line joins up everywhere at the same height.

Eight is one lesson. A real key has over a hundred entries, and a board with twenty on it is a reference sheet rather than an activity. The pairs that are nearly the same glyph, like a church with a tower against one with a spire, are deliberately not both here: the question is what a symbol means and not whether you can tell two marks apart.

The tray hands them out in an order where not one symbol lines up with its own row, so there is nowhere on the board that dragging straight across is right.

How to use it on your whiteboard

1Drag a symbol from the tray into the box next to what it means.
2Drag a symbol out of the key to move it, or press Start again to empty it.
3When all eight are down, any that are not in their own row are ringed: move those and the rings go.
4Press Show me to match them all, for reading back rather than working out.
5Press Map for the second board, then tap a symbol on the map to name it. Show all names the lot.

Questions

What is a map key for?: A map has to fit a whole area onto one sheet, so it uses a small mark for each kind of thing rather than drawing it. The key is the list of what those marks mean, and reading it is the first thing to do with any map.
What is a contour line?: A line joining up everywhere that is the same height above sea level. The number written on it is that height, and lines close together mean the ground is steep.
What is the difference between a footpath and a bridleway?: Who may use it. A public footpath is for walking; a bridleway is for walking, riding a horse and cycling. On a map they are both dashed lines, and the bridleway's dashes are longer.
Is the map a real place?: No. It is a map extract drawn for this board, with the eight symbols put where they would really be: the church in the village, the car park beside the road, the trig pillar on the summit inside the highest contour. Everything on it is our own drawing, so nothing here reproduces anybody else's cartography.
Are these the real Ordnance Survey symbols?: No, and they are not meant to be. They are our own drawings of the conventional symbols, so a class learns what the marks mean without this board copying somebody else's artwork. On a real OS map the same things appear as their own small glyphs, printed in the key at the side.