The Whole Wide World

While wandering around the internet a few weeks ago, I found this inspiring playroom featuring a giant world map. "What a great idea!" I thought. "I could put up something similar in Henry's room and it would be a great way to cover up a large portion of the dark wood-paneled wall to introduce world geography to Henry." (Henry loves the wood paneling, by the way. When we talked about painting his room, he responded, "But don't paint my brown wood wall!" He would have all the other walls match if he could.)

So I did some online shopping and found this map from National Geographic. Ben and I picked up some wall trim at Home Depot, I spray-painted it a cheerful, sunny yellow, and we made it into a frame for the map. The resemblance of the frame to the National Geographic logo was unintentional, but I think it adds a nice touch. And the map does indeed brighten up the wall.

We have grand plans for the map, from incorporating it into story time to finding the locations of distant relatives and missionaries. Henry can now point out France and England, two of the countries in one of his favorite books, The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot, by Alice and Martin Provensen. He was trying to point out France in the picture below, but couldn't quite reach it while looking at the camera, so he settled on Tunisia.