Here’s one of those time maps I wrote about on Sunday. It dates from when my daughter was 17 months old. The map is a partial sketch of our home’s floor plan, with all her daily activities and favorite objects called out. It represents my daughter’s world-view at the time, and thus, mine. I drew the map on tracing paper (often called ‘trace’ for short)– a wonderful, translucent paper used by architects for sketching. Trace and No.2 pencils are the best pairing since Lucy and Ricky. Come to think of it, maybe since before the Ricardos. Trace is a great material to have on hand for these kind of quick sketches, and for lots of other reasons. Children love that they can draw on both sides of the paper and see all their lines together. It comes in rolls of varying widths in three colors: white, ‘buff’ yellow, and canary yellow, and can be found at art supply stores. My kids are partial to rolling out a huge swath of it across the living room floor and strutting down the crinkly surface like models on a runway.
I love these. I want to do one too.