Every Kid Should Own a Globe...
…And a puzzle of the United States of America, if she lives there.
Globe first.
I had a globe when I was little. I think my grandparents gave it to us but maybe I have that wrong. Anyway, I used to find America on that globe. Then I’d find the USSR. (Those countries were where the nukes were going to land.) There was a feeling of awesomeness as I thought about this ball in my hands that was really hanging out in space. All those oceans and lands and mountains. Wow. Is that true? Do I really live on such a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the world? (Find the Chesapeake Bay on a globe, on the east coast of the USA. From the deck of a boat that bay goes on forever in every direction. From the vantage point of a globe, that bay isn’t as big as a pinky fingernail. And on some nondescript jaggy edge of that bay is my town; my home; and me.)
Tonight Cora is up late after Tina has tried to put her to bed and fallen asleep in the effort. Sitting on the couch looking thru her Kid’s Encyclopedia, she came across the word “night” with a picture of the Sun and the Earth, one side sunny and one side dark. She asked me about the picture and I grabbed her globe and then aimed our reading lamp right at it. By keeping her eye close to the Chesapeake Bay and looking at the lamp she was able to figure out which parts of the Earth’s rotation were sunrise, noon, and sunset. Smart fiveyearold.
So, I like globes.
I also like puzzles of the United States. I can remember being elementary-school-age and sitting in our dining room putting together my big USA States puzzle. That’s how I learned where all the states were. Because I learned it from a puzzle I didn’t just learn the shape of each state, but I also learned which states bordered it. And best of all, that puzzle served as a mnemonic device when we’d have a geography test in school, because the name or shape of any state brought to mind all the names and shapes of the states around it.
I bought the girls a U. States of A. puzzle at the toy store today. We’re going to tag it up with markers as they visit each state. We’re going to learn to put that puzzle together forward or backward, blindfolded, in the dark, in pain, under distraction, as Republicans and Democrats argue in the background about the will of the American People while voting to give each other raises and legal immunity, while Rush Limbaugh and NPR gnash each other to gristle for the benefit of anyone in earshot.