Saturday, January 23, 2010

Learning is Fun

Whew, did Christmas/New Year's/school vacation knock you for a loop too? We are finally settling back into a regular routine, for which I am grateful.

Just a few days after Christmas we received the World Floor Map from CSNStores.com. Fast shipping! I didn't realize that it was going to be made of that spongy floor mat material, probably because I'd never seen a puzzle made that way. I really liked that though because we were able to leave it together in the middle of the floor and study it instead of having to put it away all the time. I also liked that it came in a sturdy clear plastic bag, so when we did store it, it was easy to keep together. Quality wise, we were most pleased! It was easy to put together for my guys since they are all veteran puzzlers but that wasn't our purpose anyway. I did have to put some index cards over the names of the countries because 2 out of 3 are now readers. They have all learned some of the countries and can point them out now, which was our intent! :) And they had fun and didn't think of it as learning, also a good thing.

One misconception was that France was in the US! LOL Hey, he is only 7. So now we know where it is AND that the Eiffel Tower is there.

The kids got a giggle out of the Country named Turkey. :)

We are also facinated by the Panama Canal and are wondering what they did with all that dirt they dredged out.

The first time they heard about the earthquake in Haiti, they wanted to look it up on the map. We decided Haiti doesn't seem so far from SC. Now we are remembering Haiti in our prayers.

Key has a good friend living in Italy for a year. We looked her up and talked about Italy and how long it took her to fly there.

Robbie and I are going to Puerto Rico so we looked that up too. I love that they 'get it', that every place we mention can be found on a map. I've shown them all of the places I have visited and told them stories about my travels. Some of them Robbie hadn't even heard. Fun to remember back!

Now that we are able to find different countries on the map, we are going to learn something about each country. That should be fun too! Thanks CSNStores.com, this was a great opportunity for us!

4 comments:

The Crazy Coxes said...

This map sounds like a lot of fun! It's cool that the kids can find so many countries that they can relate to!

Natalie said...

That sounds great!! And so much for your family :) Tanner always wants to look at his map but he still gets everything confused..hehe

Marilee said...

My kids love maps... and puzzles. What a fun combination. I need to pull our globe out. They love to study it and find far-away places. My sister is going to Haiti tomorrow for 21 days so we'll have to find that. Thanks for the inspiration/reminder of the fun kids have learning about our world when they can find it on a map!

Joy For Your Journey said...

The map sounds like such a great idea. It seems to have created a wonderful interest in your children for learning. Good job mom!!

I was reading through some of your other posts. Perhaps we have met somewhere in the world. :-) We travel a lot as well. I love traveling!! Right now we are planning a trip to New Zealand. Last summer we were in the Baltic and the summer before in the Mediterranean--we have also been to China, Hong Kong, Thailand, all over Europe, Central American and a couple places in South America. Only my husband words construction and since that is now bad, we probably won't travel much afer this year.

I would love to hear about your travels. Any trips for the near future?