As soon as I saw the Little Passports logo I could immediately smell a brilliant idea. Combining a thirst for world knowledge with a kid’s love of receiving mail is a stroke of genius. Three monthly subscription packs are available: Early Explorers for the under fives, World Edition for under tens and the USA edition for lovers of all things American. Each month a kit arrives from a different location, filled with abundant global learning booty that kids are thrilled to receive and explore – and I speak from experience.
We ordered the Early Explorers for Mr Three and the World Edition for Mr Six, the first installment of which arrived in two cute and sturdy little suitcases. With our imminent holiday on the horizon I was looking forward to taking these kits on the plane and letting the boys enjoy the activities whilst in flight. They soon enlightened me however that there was in fact no way these totally covetable little suitcases were ever going to make it to the plane untouched. Mr Six was straight into his little activity booklet, learning about animals around the world and Mr Three was peeling off stickers like a pro and finding the right the spots for them in his little passport activity book. The passports… possibly my favourite feature of these first kits. We may have completed all the activity booklets pre flight, but we took the passports with us and they became quite the talking point throughout our holiday.
The beauty of these kits is that kids can learn about the world without even having to set foot on a plane. If you happen to be going on a plane however, then why not incorporate a Little Passports fun into your travels. If you’ve ever travelled with kids, you’ve probably been asked more than once if they can look after their own passport… Please. Pleeeeeeeeeeease. Just quickly! But it’s mine!! I just want to look!!! Personally that’s always been a no from me, losing passports is not featuring anywhere on my holiday to do lists. However, this time we took the passports from our kits and the kids were more than chuffed. It was a great way to help them understand why we have passports and both boys showed great diligence in insisting that they had their own special passports stamped at every passport control we went through, and there were a few. Thankfully the staff at each of them were more than happy to oblige and so their own booklets are now filled with stamps from New Zealand and the Cook Islands.
In fact in the Cook Islands there is a tiny island called Aitutaki. From there you can take a boat to an even tinier island called One Foot Island – where you can get your passport stamped! I think I can safely say we are probably the only family to have One Foot Island stamps in our Little Passport books!
Each kit comes with an age appropriate map, the Early Explores map showing the continents whilst the World Edition map has more detail, showing the countries. Both maps are up on the wall and we have the World edition in the living room so we can ask visitors to mark their hometown on the map with a pin. The boys then ask for one interesting fact about that place. We’ve learnt about the midnight sun in Norway, the great shopping in Shanghai and the wall that once ran through Berlin.
Even the little suitcases themselves are a wonderful springboard to imaginative play. When the boys had friends over the other day it was the suitcases they were playing with and we quickly had to find two more boxes so our guests had suitcases too. Off they went talking about airplanes and packing bags to see the world.
It’s beautiful to see this joy in learning about other cultures blossom in my kids, not only because it’s interesting for them, but also because the more we understand other cultures, the more compassionate and tolerant we are of people’s differences. Something I think our world can never be too short of.
If you are interested in subscribing to Little Passports please use the link provided below. The cost is the same to you, but FSK gets a small percentage. Thank you for your support! (The link works for all countries).
Disclaimer: Flying Start Kids was provided with two Little Passport kits for the purposes of review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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I absolutely love this idea! I have looked into these for my girls but unfortunately the freight to Australia was to expensive :(.
How cool!
I love this product! There are so many subscription type boxes you can get these days, but geography is often a learning are not thought about by parents… A great way to encourage the little ones to learn about the world!