The Brain as a Map - and detailed learning the brain worksheets

Recently, my highly imaginative son began describing areas of his mind detailing where he stored various bits and pieces of information, where things were 'buried' and where others mysteriously 'got lost'. I found this so interesting, that he was actively trying to surmise where and how this thoughts resided inside his head. I enjoyed this 7 year old description a lot and determined shortly after he'd finished pointing to various places on his skull, that I was going to set to work on a 'Brain Unit' to teach him.

Like many, I bit my figurative nails down to the quick deciding how to approach the school year this fall. In the end homeschooling, for us, was the best option and so, once again, I've plunged into the realms of worksheets, schedules and endless ponderings on the best ways subject matter can be made the most interesting.

Because one cannot really go wrong with cutting, pasting and colouring, these elements form the backbone of the worksheets. All are comprehensively structured to offer plenty of opportunity to shade in, label and stick information where it needs to be.

Four major views are covered: lateral, sagittal, superior and inferior. Each view has a labelled diagram identifying lobes, cortexes and other areas along with their functions.

Each view has an accompanying blank diagram for labeling and a cut and paste version. Colouring in the various areas not only looks lovely, but helps clearly show where each of the areas are for easy identification.


Being a cartographer, I found it impossible not to imagine what the brain might look like as a map. After all, these regions, 'boundaries' and functions all are analogous in many ways to features on a map.

 It's not often that a cartographer gets to invent a geography so it was a really fun 'map' to create, coming up with names and features that fit well with the characteristics of each part of the brain. This map is included as a bonus colouring page in the pack of worksheets below.