Why the map stays on the wall
It was supposed to be temporary decoration. Two years later it has caused more conversations than any toy in the house.
By Angela
The world map went up because the wall was empty and it was on sale. I did not think much about it.
It has since turned out to be the most useful thing in the playroom.
What happens with it
Somebody's grandparents live somewhere. Somebody's cousin is flying somewhere. Somebody saw a shark on television. All of those end up at the map.
The four and five year olds have worked out that the blue parts are water and the water is enormous. That took a while and involved some arguing. One of them was firmly of the view that you could walk to Mexico if you were willing to put in the day.
Animals are printed on it, which is what draws the younger ones in first. The penguins at the bottom get a lot of attention. So does the polar bear, mostly because the children want to know why they are at opposite ends and cannot visit each other.
Why it works better than a lesson
I did not sit anyone down to teach geography. Nobody would have cared.
What the map does is sit there, at child height, available, on the day a question happens to come up. The learning is attached to something the child already wanted to know, which is the only kind that stays.
The same is true of the alphabet strip along the other wall. Nobody gets drilled on it. But when a child is trying to write her own name and gets stuck on the R, the R is right there, and she goes and finds it herself. That is worth more than me telling her.
The unglamorous version
Put good things where children can reach them. Answer the question that gets asked instead of the one you planned. Wait.
That is most of it.
