Scale Drawings and Scale Maps: Small Drawings of Big Things

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1 Getting Started
2 Watch and Notice
3 Try It Together
4 Sketch the Plan in Your Copy
5 Out to Measure and Convert
6 Class Challenge
7 What Did We Notice?
8 What's Next
Pupil practice

1 - Getting Started ~3 mins

Look at the park map on the board. The two trees marked here are an easy walk apart in real life. About how far do you think they sit, five metres, twenty metres, a hundred metres? What clue on the map could help you decide?

Teacher Notes

Take three hands-up answers and accept the spread. Most pupils will guess between 10 and 50 m. Don't reveal the answer yet, that's the question that opens the lesson, the little ruler in the corner of the map is the clue we're going to learn to read.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Watch and Notice ~9 mins

A scale (like 1:100) tells you how many real metres one centimetre on the page stands for. Watch three worked plans, each at a different scale, then we'll try one together.

5 m × 3 m classroom at 1:100 (1 cm = 1 m)

The real classroom is 5 metres long and 3 metres wide. At 1:100, each metre becomes one centimetre, so the plan is 5 cm × 3 cm. Count along the bottom (5) and up the side (3); each centimetre stands for a metre.

40 m treasure route at 1:1000 (1 cm = 10 m)

The treasure is 40 metres away from the start. At 1:1000, each centimetre stands for ten metres, so the route is only 4 cm on the page. The right-hand number got bigger and the picture got smaller.

12 m × 8 m school yard at 1:200 (1 cm = 2 m)

The yard is 12 m by 8 m. At 1:200, each centimetre stands for two metres, so the plan is 6 cm × 4 cm. The bigger the right-hand number, the smaller the picture compared to the real thing.

Teacher Notes

Walk each plan in turn, about two to three minutes each. Point at the scale notation aloud, 'one to one hundred', then count the centimetres against the metres so pupils see them match. Watch for the most common slip: pupils thinking 1:100 means one centimetre equals one hundred centimetres (true, but they then write 100 cm on the plan instead of 1 cm). Catch it by saying 'one hundred centimetres is the same as one metre, the plan stays at 1 cm'.

Pause on the treasure-map example to ask 'why is 40 m only 4 cm here when the same 40 m would have been 40 cm on the classroom plan?' The answer is the bigger right-hand number, more metres are squeezed into each centimetre.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Try It Together ~10 mins

Today we explore: build a 1:100 plan of our own classroom on the grid. We'll start at the south-west corner of the room and walk round, calling out where each corner sits in metres. The pupil at the board plots each corner in turn.

Plot our own classroom at 1:100

Teacher Notes

This round is for talking it through together — pupils take turns at the board and the class agrees or corrects out loud.

Measure or recall the classroom's dimensions to the nearest half-metre before the lesson; most rooms are around 6 m × 5 m to 8 m × 6 m. If you have not had a chance to measure, fall back to a stated 6 m × 5 m room and say so to the class — the maths runs the same way. Take the south-west corner as A and place it at (0, 0). Call out the position of each corner in metres, and an individual pupil plots it at the matching centimetre on the grid. Pause on the second corner to ask 'how do we know it goes here?', pupils should be able to say 'because the classroom is six metres wide, so on a 1:100 plan that's six centimetres'. Rotate four pupils through the four corners.

+15 XP

4 - Sketch the Plan in Your Copy ~2 mins

COPYBOOK MOMENT

In your maths copy, sketch a scale plan of your own desk-top at 1:10. That means one centimetre on the page stands for ten centimetres in real life, so a 60 cm wide desk becomes 6 cm on the page. Use your ruler to measure the length and the width of your desk in centimetres, divide each by ten, and draw the plan in your copy. Label the real length AND the paper length on every side, and write "Scale 1:10" clearly above the drawing.

Teacher Notes

Walk the row glancing at the scale label and the paper measurements — this is whole-class copybook practice, not marking. The most common slip: pupils forget to divide and start drawing the full real length, or they divide but don't label the real value alongside. Catch each with one short question, 'how many centimetres should that be on a 1:10 plan?' or 'where on the line does it say what the real desk measures?'

+10 XP

5 - Out to Measure and Convert ~13 mins

Going outside

Take maths copies, pencils and one metre stick per pair to wherever your school has a long wall and a door together — the corridor, the hall, a covered area outside, or the classroom itself. Pair the class up before moving.

Materials

metre stick
maths copy
pencil

Plan

One partner places the start of the metre stick at the beginning of the wall; the other walks the stick along, counting full metres until the wall ends.
Record the real length of the wall in metres in your copy.
Convert the real length to paper centimetres using a 1:100 scale — each metre becomes one centimetre.
Repeat for a second length: the height of a door, or the width of the space.
Back at your desk, sketch a 1:100 plan of what you measured in your copy, with the scale '1:100' written clearly above it and the real lengths labelled.

If you can’t go out: indoor alternative

If you can't leave the classroom, measure inside it — the longest wall, the width of a row of desks, and the door frame. The conversion to 1:100 works exactly the same way.

Teacher Notes

Allow about thirteen minutes total: two minutes to move and settle, eight or nine minutes to measure and convert, two minutes to head back. Pair pupils up before they move so there's no jostling for partners. One pupil holds the metre stick at the start, the other walks to its end and marks where the next metre begins.

The common slip is writing the real length on the plan without the scale label — pupils write '4 m' inside their 4 cm rectangle and forget to note '1:100'. Insist on writing the scale clearly at the top of each sketch before they walk on to the next measurement.

+15 XP

Pupil practice

Module 7 · Data, Chance and the Co-ordinate Plane Data & Chance

Lesson 88 · Scale Drawings and Scale Maps: Small Drawings of Big Things

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Teacher Class Feed

1 - Getting Started ~3 mins

2 - Watch and Notice ~9 mins

5 m × 3 m classroom at 1:100 (1 cm = 1 m)

40 m treasure route at 1:1000 (1 cm = 10 m)

12 m × 8 m school yard at 1:200 (1 cm = 2 m)

3 - Try It Together ~10 mins

Plot our own classroom at 1:100

4 - Sketch the Plan in Your Copy ~2 mins

5 - Out to Measure and Convert ~13 mins

Materials

Plan

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