Create a Hogwarts Floor Plan

Grade Levels: 3 - 8

Objectives

Students will learn about the concept of scale and other mapping skills as they create a floor plan of Hogwarts School.

Materials

• Graph paper
• Pencils
• Markers

Procedures

1. Make sure that students have a good understanding of the terms floor plan, bird's eye view, and scale before they start drawing any floor plans.
   • A floor plan is a diagram of one room, apartment, or entire floor of a building, usually drawn to scale
   • For a bird's eye view explain that students will be drawing a map of Hogwarts as if they are looking at it from above.
   • Scale is the ratio between the size of something and a representation of it.

2. Scale can be demonstrated by measuring the perimeter of your classroom with a yard stick and then converting those measurements into squares on a piece of graph paper. Show students that one foot could equal one square on the graph paper, if that's the scale they choose.
3. Ask each student to practice this by drawing a bird's eye view of the classroom (on graph paper) using the same scale.

4. Decide on symbols to be used to represent desks, chairs, windows, etc., then show students how to make a map key and a scale at the bottom of their practice map.

5. Once you decide on a scale for the classroom measurements, it will help to use this same scale for the Hogwarts floor plans.

6. Once its time to draw Hogwarts, have the class generate a list of all of the rooms they can remember from the story.

7. Direct students to draw a floor plan showing a bird's eye view of all of the rooms at Hogwarts. The floor plan also needs to include a map key and a scale.

8. Once the floor plans are completed, put them on a bulletin board and you'll have Hogwarts on display in your classroom!