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Map Skills Coloring Activity for Middle School

Sarah Miller

Kick off your school year with map and globe skills! What middle school social studies classroom doesn’t cover map skills? Since map skills are a basic concept covered in middle school social studies, you'd think it would be easy to find resources for it. However, most of the resources out there are for lower grades. Finding map activities for older kids is no easy task. That's where I can help!! 

This color-by-code is perfect for middle school or upper elementary classrooms! You can use this to kick off your Geography Unit or just for an overall review.

This packet includes 20 prompts that cover a variety of map and globe skills.

Skills included: 

Skills included: 

  1. Cardinal and intermediate directions

  2. latitude and longitude

  3. Grid maps: reading/interpreting and creating

  4. Physical maps: reading/interpreting and drawing conclusions

  5. Graphic scales: to determine distances

  6. Map Keys: to acquire information





This coloring activity can be used in so many different ways! You can adjust it to fit your classroom. 

Some ideas for using this map skills packet in your classroom: 

  1. Warm-up/Bell-Ringer/Activator: Split up the prompts, and use one worksheet as an activating strategy. You can sprinkle them in throughout the week, then students can color when they’re finished. 

  2. Part of spiral review for ongoing map skills: sprinkle map and globe skills with your other content throughout the year, so the skills stay fresh

  3. Independent Work: Have students complete the pages independently during quiet time

  4. Small groups/partners: Have students complete some of the pages with a partner (or a combination of partners and independent)

  5. Station: When you’re doing stations/centers for another concept, add in a “Map and Globe” station. Use this coloring activity as a station. 

  6. Homework: Give as homework to avoid neglecting map skills in your classroom.

For other ideas on teaching map skills to middle school students, read this blog post! 

My print-and-go Map Map Skills Color-by-Code includes all the pages you see in the images above. I created this knowing you are super busy, so it is NO PREP. Click here to purchase the complete Map Skills Color-by-Code Worksheet. 

Looking for more map and geography ideas?

If you need more inspiration for teaching map skills and geography in your social studies classroom, you must check out these other posts.