One of the things my husband and I have tried to instill into our son, Toby, is a love of maps. My husband is a bit of a map geek, and so sharing this passion was important to him. Whenever we go hiking Toby has his own map, and we always make sure to check out the 3-D maps that can be found at some of the more touristy hikes we do. We have an acre of woods in Maine and so there are many "hikes" that occur on our own doorstep. On a recent photo binge, I was excited to see that Snapfish offers personalized maps. It was too tempting not to test it out.
You can choose from several different options: Serenity Island, Play Paradise, Adventure Land and Pirate Hideaway. Both Serenity Island and Adventure Land are available in two different colors, a neutral version and a version that leans towards the pinker side of life. You can also get a Dora the Explorer Map, which I found a little nauseating but I'm sure my son would have adored! Considering Toby's current penchant for Peter Pan stories, we opted to order him a treasure map. Perfect for Talk Like a Pirate Day.
According to creator Brian Backus, the aim of Kidlandia maps is to engage kids and encourage personal connections that will motivate geography and reading skills. It is their belief that providing a child with their own personal realm can increase a child's sense of confidence and self worth.
You can personalize as much or as little as you like. I tend to second guess myself a lot, and so I decided to choose the option of adding in more names, but leaving the illustrations to the program itself. I added in the maximum of twenty five names. Close family members, friends of Toby's from church and daycare. We got quite a good list out of it as the program generated place names, and some characters, based on my information:
- Daddy Isle and Lesser Daddy Isle,
- MummyTopia and Mummy Town - Please excuse the personalized British spelling!
- Grandad Cove and Grandad the Thunk
- Isle of Grandma
- William Rocks
- Miss Lucy Bay
- Aiden Mountains
- Nannyopia
- Adelaide Gateway
There are many decorative options, avaialable. You can add creatures, buildings, vehicles and all manner of "stuff," depending on how much time you want to invest in the creation of a map. For an older child it would be a great project for learning city planning and development, a prelude to using Minecraft perhaps?
It's printed on photo paper which seems to get flimsier as the picture gets bigger, the maps are available on 11"x14" up to 20"x30", so we opted to also get the map laminated to withstand some hard playing at the hands of a rowdy three year old. It would be great as is for decoration, or for an older child. It's also a fun gift for your grown up map geeks. Snapfish claims that it is fade resistant for 200 years, so maybe some 23rd century pirate will stumble across our map and wonder where our treasure is buried.
A quick visit to the Kidlandia website shows that there is much more to choose from than is available through their partnership with Snapfish. Personalized Marvel posters, Kidlandia maps on Pillow cases, andcomic book fleece blankets. I am very glad to have discovered this resource this side of Christmas!
I was sent a map to review for GeekMom.
