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This is a WONDERUL hands on way to teach kids a little geography! It would be wonderful for a USA study, Geography, or Westward Expansion Unit (like we did above – note the black line that shows the Oregon Trail Route)

We started with a basic Salt Dough recipe of 3/4 cup salt, 1 and 1/4  cup flour, and 1/2 cup water.  This seemed to be the right consistency, made enough ‘dough’ and only needed to dry about 48-72 hours before it was ready to paint.

The hardest part for younger kids is getting the shape right. We printed out a map with different colored elevations and put that on a piece of cardboard. We then put our salt dough directly on top of the map. It worked GREAT!

Then we colored our map by elevation. You might want to reprint your original map as a guide. We did some paint mixing to get a variety of different shades. We added some major rivers, surrounding countries (in white so as not to distract from the subject mater) and adjacent oceans.

Here is our finished map. Goofy (and Mommy) is so proud of it! And he amazes me at how much he remembers of the details (mountains, rivers, oceans) he added. He even remembers the family vacation I pointed out for him on the map!  I definitely recommend making your own Salt Dough Map!

As always, I appreciate you taking the time to leave me a comment if this was helpful =-)