The Raleigh City Museum exhibits a very interesting map in the "It Started with 1000 Acres" exhibit.  The map displays all of Raleigh, and indicates when each section was acquired by the City of Raleigh.

Allow your children to find your house on the map.  Map reading is an important skill which is part of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) sixth grade curriculum.  Discuss with your children the importance of being included on the map in the City of Raleigh.

If your family does not live in Wake County, have your children find the homes of family members or friends who may live in Raleigh.  Other possibilities are to have your children find North Carolina State University at Hillsborough Street and Dan Allen Drive; Triangle Town Center Mall at the corner of Capitol Boulevard (Highway 1) and Old Wake Forest Road; or Crabtree Valley Mall at the corner of Glenwood Avenue and Blue Ridge Road.  Raleigh's current mayor, Charles Meeker, lives in Raleigh at 342 South Boylan Avenue in Raleigh.  Have your children find his residence.  Your children may also be interested in finding some well-known Raleigh businesses such as IBM, located at Davis Drive and Cornwallis Road in Research Triangle Park, the current location of the Briggs Hardware Building at 2533 Atlantic Avenue, or the RBC Center where the Carolina Hurricanes play located at 1400 Edwards Mill Road.

In this same exhibit, the Raleigh City Museum has built an amazing timeline which stretches the length of the wall.  When looking at this timeline, encourage your children to find the year they were born and discover some interesting event that happened around that time.  With this simple yet effective exercise, you will be encouraging your child to really "see" the exhibits rather than just "looking" at them.  Often we (children and adults) will "look" at all the exhibits but neglect to glean any information.  By encouraging your child to "see" the exhibit, you will be helping them to absorb as much knowledge as possible.
 

-Page designed by Jan Bunting, Brian Davenport and Tara Stanford

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Photos compliments of Jan Bunting, Brian Davenport and Tara Stanford

Bunting, Jan; Davenport, Brian; Stanford, Tara, Raleigh City Museum, March 2003,  North Carolina State University Department of Education, ECI 551