Back to School '26- '27
Start the school year with practical ideas you can bring directly into your classroom. This year's online workshop series focuses on instructional strategies for teaching with maps—from fostering curiosity in the elementary grades to helping students investigate maps as primary sources and confidently teach the maps featured in the Investigating History curriculum.
What Can A Map Do? Teaching Maps for Elementary School (Online)
Grades K-4
Tuesday, August 25 at 10AM
Maps foster curiosity and help young learners make sense of the world around them. In this 60-minute online workshop, we'll explore how to use both historic and contemporary maps alongside hands-on mapping activities to build spatial thinking and support cross-curricular learning in elementary classrooms. You'll leave with classroom-ready ideas that help students ask questions, notice patterns, and connect mapping to everyday learning.
You will also learn how to select and sources for maps in your neighborhood that will encourage student engagement.
Maps as Primary Sources (Online)
Grades 5-12
Wednesday, August 26 at 10AM
Maps are more than tools for finding places—they are primary sources that reveal how people understood and represented the world around them. In this 60-minute online workshop, you'll investigate strategies for helping students analyze maps as historical evidence by asking questions, considering perspective, and examining what maps include—and omit. You'll leave with practical routines that support historical inquiry through maps.
Teaching Maps in Investigating History
Grades 3 & 4
Teaching Maps in Investigating History: Grade 3
Thursday, August 27 at 10AM
The Grade 3 Investigating History curriculum uses maps to help students explore place, movement, and historical change. In this 45-minute online workshop, we'll examine the maps featured throughout the curriculum and share practical strategies for teaching them with confidence. You'll leave with ready-to-use approaches that strengthen students' map-reading skills and historical thinking.
Teaching Maps in Investigating History: Grade 4
Thursday, August 27 at 1PM
Maps play a central role in helping Grade 4 students investigate the past in the Investigating History curriculum. In this 45-minute online workshop, we'll explore the maps featured throughout the curriculum and discuss practical strategies for teaching them effectively. You'll leave with ideas that help students interpret maps, ask better questions, and deepen their historical understanding.
Exploring Local History: Preparing for Investigating History Grade 3, Unit 5
Grade 3 (IH Unit 5)
Wednesday, January 20 at 4PM
Third graders explore the history of their own backyards. Join LMEC Educators and BPL Librarians for this online workshop to learn how you can guide your students to success with grade-level appropriate resources and tools.
Past Workshops
See a list of past workshops here, with links to workshop materials.