One of the toughest things when it comes to teaching kids is making learning fun. Going through pages of a textbook are not thrilling to most kids, even if they are reading about new places. But if they can put their finger on the country they are reading about, that's a whole different story. This is why globes are a great teaching tool, and a fun conversation tool to have in the house. Good educational globes make kids want to learn about the world, without you feeling like you are pulling teeth.



Kids like to see and touch things. They are very tactile and visual learners. Globes offer this by showing them the real shape of the planet. They can get an idea for what it takes to really travel around the world, and see how small their part of the world is in comparison to the rest of the massive planet.

Not to mention, a globe is more accurate than a map when you want to show your child the world. After all, maps are flat, and the world is round. If you really wanted to take a globe and turn it into a map, it would be a bit messy as the bottom and top would look like a zigzag as some pieces were cut out to make an accurate representation. Instead of doing this many flat maps of the world try to soften that look, and end up stretching the size of come countries that are near the top and bottom of the globe.

Traditional globes are a nice enough way to show the world to your child, but there are many on the market that can do even more. Some globes will get their attention by lighting up when you touch one of the countries. Others will even interact with you, telling your child which country they are touching, and possibly even a few facts about that country.

Historically speaking, globes are a kind of new way to look at the world. In centuries past many people thought the world was flat, so a flat map made sense to them. They only knew the lands they had visited and believed beyond those regions, there were wide expanses of water, or an end to the world, where they may fall off.

Eventually some scientists deduced that the world was really round, but no one really wanted to test the theory and sail or explore the areas where it may still have met its end. Even in the days of Christopher Columbus, there were a few globes to go around, but people were not so sure if they should test the theory, although he did well for taking that challenge.

As you use globes today, you can stick with a traditional current globe, or if you are using it to do a little social studies teaching, you may be able to find globes of those days gone by, and see the world as it was during various points in history.