Our Map Man

 Daniel has loved maps since he was barely two. We hadn't been trying to teach him... we hadn't even thought of teaching him geography. We were in the States at the time, and had a place mat that was a world map. We showed Rebekah where America and India were, but Daniel didn't want to leave it at that. He started pointing to other countries asking, "What's this country?" So we told him. And he remembered!

Daniel with his world map place mat in November 2010

Now we have more place mats - the world map plus a place mat for each continent. His favorite is Asia, of course. =) At meals he will almost invariably ask, "Can we do countries?" That means we ask him where a country is and he either tells us or "drives" one of his cars there! It sometimes becomes so all-consuming for him that we usually have to tell him to finish his food first and then we can do countries.

Driving his car around South America

For Christmas, Daniel received a globe from his great-aunt. It was by far his favorite gift! He hadn't worked with a globe before, so he was a little disoriented at first, but quickly got it figured out.

"Doing countries" with his globe

 While Rebekah is doing her school work each day, Daniel usually wants to "do school" too. Part of that is almost always "doing countries," either with Daniel's globe or with the world map we have on the wall in the school room. Hannah loves to stand up with him beside the map pointing at countries and looking important with her big brother. =)

As you may notice from the video, some of Daniel's favorite countries are the ones where people we know live (which are many). Sri Lanka is currently a big favorite though because of our visit there this past December. As Rebekah aptly says, "We're travelers." Our little traveler might as well be prepared!