Puzzle Globe

What is it

Now the youngest learners will get a feel for geography with the Puzzle Globe. There are six colourful puzzle pieces to represent each continent (plus a fixed piece for Antarctica). Each puzzle piece (continent) fits into one hole on the globe to make it easy for little ones to place. Once complete, the globe can be customised with stickers of famous landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall of China. The globe has a sturdy base and spins just like a real globe!

What our experts think

The Puzzle Globe from Learning Resources is a great teaching aid for introducing young children to Geography. Our testers loved the stickers and these were ideal for starting a discussion about the animals and landmarks in each country. They needed some help putting the puzzle pieces in to start with, as they only fit in one way, but once they’d been shown children enjoyed removing and adding the continents themselves.

It’s good that the labels and continents are colour matched, but as the globe is for pre-readers the labels are more of a distraction (although perhaps useful for adults). Parents may want to take the labels away or pre-attach them to the continents. We think the notes about the continents are brilliant for extending learning, but activity suggestions would have been useful – for example, asking children to find certain landmarks, or timing them to see how fast they can build the globe.