The Wonder Atlas

A map of things to figure out.

How the map works

Every stop on the trail is its own little app with its own link. Each one works alone, shared any way you like, and it is also one stop here on the map. Finishing one lights up the next.

Nothing is ever locked shut. Stops further ahead are dimmed so the path is clear, but a tap still opens them, and a direct link always works.

Progress lives only on this device, in this browser. Nothing is sent anywhere. Tap an app to open it; tap the circle on its card to stamp it figured out once the kid can explain the idea back to you.

Why this order

The trail follows how curriculum research says science ideas grow between ages 7 and 10: start with things a child can touch and watch, one idea at a time, each stop a phenomenon to wonder about before any big words arrive, and the same big ideas returning later in deeper clothes.

  • ConsensusMagnets and forces first. Pushes and pulls open the primary science progression, and forces that act without touching (magnets) are grade-3 territory. Everything later on this map - engines, tides, orbits - is secretly a force story, so this is the front door.
  • JudgmentMachines next. Engines are pushes and squeezes made useful, so they follow forces. Energy transfer is grades 3-5 material, and at this age it lands best on machines a kid already finds loud and wonderful.
  • ConsensusEarth and sky. Patterns a child can actually watch - shadows, the moon's face - are the youngest astronomy in the standards; water and weather systems follow in grades 3-5. Seasons and tides are formally middle-school ideas; here they stay at watch-and-play level.
  • ConsensusLight. "We see because light enters our eyes" and simple wave behavior sit in grades 3-5. It comes after sky-watching, once the child has already been seeing things and wondering how.
  • ConsensusBody and living things. Plants building themselves from air, water and sunlight is a grade-5 idea, and it is really a light story, so it follows Light.
  • Consensus JudgmentGravity and orbits. Gravity pulling things toward Earth's center is a grade-5 idea. Orbits themselves are middle-school formal science, placed here as a gentle stretch - because falling-around-the-Earth is the most delightful way to meet gravity properly.
  • JudgmentFar out, last. Black holes, curved paths and moving clocks are far beyond the grade bands. They stay at observe-and-compare level - no equations, just watching and wondering - as the twinkly reward at the end of the trail.
  • ConsensusNumbers is a side trail. Place value before regrouping is standard maths sequencing. It runs alongside the science trail, open from the very start.

Three research habits shaped the whole map. First, every stop opens with a hook: a real thing to look at or play with, and a question, before any vocabulary (NGSS's own guidance on teaching with phenomena). Second, the path is a recommendation, not a fence: the research says children grow along several interwoven paths at once, never one true sequence, which is exactly why nothing here is hard-locked. Third, the trail spirals: the same few big ideas - forces, energy, patterns - keep coming back, each time a little deeper, which is how the standards themselves are built.

Sources