USA and the World

I received this puzzle today and I am very happy with it. I bought it so my children and I could work on geography over the summer. My children have not learned geography in school the way I did when I was a child. I think it's important and therefore, we are working on that ourselves. The flags and capitals are blank with the exception of one. I think this is a great way to help get the kids involved and learn the capitals of the different states in the US as well as countries around the world. The puzzles are made of foam and the enlarged US map did fall apart upon taking it out of the box. You should keep a cardboard under it (there is one in the box). I think this product offers a lot of educational possibility and I can't wait to get started. I have also purchased the US cards that have "magic" symbols on them that can be temporarily erased before they go back to being hidden. The cards are also from this company. I haven't received them yet, but I will review once I do. They seem to have a lot of nice learning sets and will most likely purchase more.

This is a great geography set! The foam is good quality and the pieces fit snug without having to be forced in. I like the two sided flags. For the US, they have the state capital on one side and an interesting fact on the other. For all of the other countries, they have the flag on one side and capital on the other. It did take a while to assemble all of the flags and stick the stickers on, but it was a fun review before we got started. We also had 4 extra blank flags. I'd say my only criticism of this set is that some areas could have been more in depth. For example, I feel like United Kingdom could have easily been divided up into it's individual parts. England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are not represented at all. The same goes for some southeastern Europe countries. Additionally, I feel like European flags were skimpy. A lot of the countries flags were not represented and there was plenty of room to add them in (see picture). Overall, it's a great set and we have enjoyed completing it as a family.

My four year old grandson loves it!! He can put all the states in the right place without any help. Highly recommend this!

This is not so much a game as it is a somewhat self-correcting geography test. The puzzle pieces fit surprisingly well together, in spite of the fact that they're glorified craft foam. You'll have to watch your kid place the capital flags though, and try not to let them catch you surreptitiously looking up capitals you've never heard of on your phone or mouthing the words of Wakko's United States to yourself because you forgot that Pierre is the capital of South Dakota. The little plastic flags come with sheets of stickers that have the name of a capital on one sticker and that country's/state's flag on the other. Pro tip: have an adult do the sticker placing, otherwise you'll end up with a Canadian flag with "Havana" on the other side, which is fine if you're going for really subtle political commentary, but that's probably not going to help your middle schooler pass geography tests. If they still do geography tests in middle school. I don't know; I homeschool, which is why I bought this thing in the first place. The world is, of course, a big place, and some countries are apparently more, let's say, worthy of attention than others. Europe and the US get their own maps, but not even all of the European countries get their own little flag in the proverbial sand. Some of the states had to be combined into one puzzle piece because they're so small, which led to an interesting conversation about how basically every debate in our country boils down to population density. I'd like to see a more complete version, even if the box has to be bigger. My kid made the mistake of trying to move the Europe puzzle, resulting in Central Europe falling apart in a jumbled heap that was hard to put back together. I assured him that that happens in real life every so often, so he shouldn't worry about it. Rather like in Risk, South America has roughly 6 countries of note and none of them are the beautiful islands that anyone who plays real-life Risk (basically anyone with an off-shore bank account and a close relative in politics/the military industrial complex) would go on their vacay. Venezuela was troublesome--the Caracas flag slot wasn't done right and the flag kept falling over. Maybe it's a manufacturing error, maybe it's a metaphor--you decide. Africa has only 8 flags and several countries are too small to be labeled. This is the biggest area of improvement. Again, I'd like to see a bigger version with all countries and flags. Half this continent feels like it's changed since I memorized Yakko's World, and it's embarrassing that my kids know more African geography than I do. I'd also like to see a larger breakout of the Middle East, Asia, and Oceana because I'm a product of a time when our school system acknowledged Mesopotamia for a few thousand years and then forgot it ever existed, and the only Asian country was China until WWII, and then you learned about battles but with a vague understanding of them happening "somewhere in the Pacific." A good number of countries are flagged, but not all, so I'd love to see more completeness, if nothing else because Moana 2 is coming out and I still don't really have a solid grasp of where the Heart of Tafiti was supposed to go. A note about putting the game away--I guess I guess I'm a bad American because I didn't put the ol' US of A first. I put the world in the box first, then Europe, and tucked the flags to the side. I thought tension would hold the pieces together enough to transfer the puzzle to the box, but when I went to put America on top, the states fractured faster than in the aftermath of the election of 1860, or possibly 2024. Oops. Do yourself a favor and use the enclosed cardboard to put America first, then the other puzzles, and chuck the flags in wherever they fit. In all, I'm glad I got this--it's more fun to place flags in foam than it is to write a boring geography test. My flag recognition is terrible, which I was reminded of all over again during the Olympics, so I'm sure this will help ME learn as well as my kids. I'm rather hoping the company comes out with some expansions, but a bigger set with flag slots for every country would be even better. Even if they don't, this covers a good chunk of the world's countries and is a big help for the 50 states, and that's a good start.

This is a large, fun, interactive map! The foam probably could tear if your children are younger and pull a bit on it, but in general, it's wonderful quality! All of the areas are well marked and the flags are very sturdy. My tween daughter was having problems remembering geography so we purchased this map. It's been so much fun and it's definitely helped with the learning process.

Excellent and fun for kids to learn

This is awesome! I was using flash cards (boring). This is the best hands-on way to teach geography. As for some reviews that said it breaks easy, it is foam, so take care of it. The foam makes it affordable.

I bought this 5 years ago for homeschool. It was perfect for social studies because of the multi sensory aspect. The flags! They was quite fun too for the capitols. Even now, it gets taken out regularly just for fun. Definitely one of my better purchases.

It is very good quality and helps in gaining knowledge about the world.

Working perfectly fine 🙂

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