Some years the focus of your school year can end up far from where you ever thought it would go and this year was one of those years. One trip to the library a couple of months ago and we took out a book on teaching tourism to scholars, it was such an inspiration. That was all we need to get the idea to study a little tourism… glean the landmarks, and the main features of countries around the world. Learning about countries around the world suddenly became learning with a purpose… what if we ever got to go there. Turns out there is a vast difference between learning a couple of facts about a country and planning a visit!!!
The last few weeks, we have had heaps of visitors from friends all over Africa, and naturally our focus has turned towards home. A couple of months into our studies and we have figured out how to get from country to country, which sites in Southern Africa are on our must see list, which countries need yellow fever cards and where to find the best markets, game parks and good spots for local adventures. And then Mapstudio asked us to review their Africa Playing Cards and we were all for it and we knew our readers would love them too…
Africa Playing Cards from MapStudio
The cards are a deck of regular playing cards and you can play regular card games with them, but each card also comes with a country on it and a couple of fast facts:
- The location in Africa.
- The map
- The flag
- Area (miles and kilometres)
- Highest Point
- Population
- Capital and Important Cities
- Currency
- Main Exports…
I think there might have been one or two early risers… trying to master some facts on the quiet…
And the most coveted card in the pack… South Africa of course!!!
3 Quick Games with Country Cards
- “And Just Where Are You Going?” Divide the cards amongst the players… and give each player a map of Africa. Take turns… the player whose turn it is gets to give the others clues about the country in their hand… and the first player to get it wins the card. Player with the most cards wins.
- The Best of the Rest: Divide the cards amongst the players. Each player takes turns to ask for the largest area, the lowest population, the country with the capital earliest or latest in the alphabet… Basically any question that provides a winner. The winner gets the card and ultimately the player with the most card wins.
- Neighbouring States: Divide the cards amongst all the players and the first player puts down a card. Take turns, and if a player has a card that is neighbouring any of the cards on the table they can put a card down (think dominoes)… first player to place all their cards on the table is the winner.
The GiveAway
We have two packs of Africa Country Cards to GiveAway to our readers… One to a local reader living in South Africa and one to someone living outside of South Africa.
After asking our readers if they prefer “leave a comment” or “rafflecopter” GiveAways last week, it was pretty unanimous…our readers like to leave comments… So now we would love lots and lots of comments from you all: Leave a comment and tell us where you are… We really want to know and would love to put a pin on our map wherever our readers are… If you can be precise and tell us the state and town that would be great… Please help us cover our map in pins!!!
This GiveAway works in the usual way, leave a comment before the end of 24 October, 2014. We will draw and publish the winners in the Fabulous Friday Fun Post after that. I won’t respond to your comments as we do on our other posts because we don’t want to be included in our own giveaway. Our GiveAways are open to everyone: If you have won a GiveAway before never fear – enter away. If you live on the far side of the world – enter away. Postage takes forever from here but eventually it should get to you! Good luck and happy commenting!!!
We would like to thank MapStudio who supplied us with three packs of cards, one to review and two to GiveAway. We were not paid for the review and the opinions expressed in it are as usual, entirely our own.
What a fun set of cards – we would LOVE to win these! We are in Bostwick, GA, USA (though our address is Madison). A small town of with a population of around 500. Missing you on IG & hope all is well!
Thanks for the fun giveaway! xo
These look amazing! I will be adding these to a wishlist. We’re in Middletown, Maryland, USA. I adore your blog!
Linda B. from Oneonta, New York, USA.
Thanks!
What fun to have a game based on so many places we have been! They are on my wishlist too!! And we are in Blantyre, Malawi.
Those cards look so fun! The kids always want to play a new game. We are in Ragley (a little north of Lake Charles), Louisiana, USA.
These would be a good resource to put with our world atlas to learn more about Africa. I live in Philadelphia, PA.
We’re just “round the corner” in Milkwood Park, Sunnydale, Cape Town and relative newbies to homeschooling! Your posts are so inspiring, thank you! We love exploring and travelling (or dreaming of travelling!). These cards look like good fun.
Our knowledge of Africa is woefully patchy over here – our son loves geography games and statistics, so he’d be all over this card game! 🙂
We live in Switzerland, there are four language regions and we live in the German speaking part. Thank you for hosting the giveaway!
Barbara x
Those cards look great!! We are in Macclesfield, Cheshire UK…have put some home school moms here onto your blog..always great inspiration.
We are in Cape Town, South Africa 🙂
This is such an awesome thing – would love to have this to share my kids.
Oh we would love these! I am sure the kids will have so much fun.
And we are in Lynnwood Pretoria, Gauteng, RSA
Also in Cape Town!
We’re in Canada. My kids would love these cards… For playing with AND reading! Thanks for the opportunity.
Would love to take part in the draw
We love all types of playing cards. This will be a great addition to our collection. We live in Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa
Hello! Greetings from Salisbury, Wiltshire in England.
We love map games. Always playing Seterra (a free map game we downloaded) We are in Cape Town
We live in Toledo ohio. Would love to win these cards:). Thanks you.
Cards are popular in our house right now.
We are in Singleton, New South Wales, Australia.
Well my pin would need to be almost ontop of yours 😉 i am in Fishoek.
We are in Cape Town, RSA. The cards look very interesting, please enter us.
These look like so much fun, I love the game ideas! It would be cool if they add other continents as well 🙂
Have a great day, from England
Another Cape Town pin from me
Oh! These are great! They would be so perfect to go with our current world geography project!
We are in northern British Columbia, Canada! And these cards look like great fun…
I have to say honestly, i am more excited to see your map covered in pins for each readers location, than winning the cards! Im a sticler for learning & stats ;D I do hope you’ll share a photo of it once complete?!?! In menatime, we are Canadians as well like above commenter–Accept we are down & over in Ontario, Canada. Toronto is thee main major city visited here/there by tourists, however our capital city is Ottawa! And, our family resides in specifcally a wee town called Georgetown. You could look for us under & around the Halton Hills “Region”. Region represents a few small towns like a pack, that are run by the same Members of Political Parties, by-laws, & stuff! 😉 LOL! Sooo excited to read all comments from others wen i can too. Youre an incredibly inspirational family 😉
Billings, Montana USA (close to Pompey’s Pillar- Lewis & Clark expedition) your blog is a great way for my kids to learn about living in a place so different than where we live.
these look like so much fun ! we are in Cape Town(Northern Suburbs)
Greetings from Traverse City, Michigan, USA! These cards look fantastic; we love open ended games! As always, thanks for the giveaway!
Map pinning sounds like a great idea. We are in Parow, Cape Town- just south of the Tygerberg Hill. My bunch have been plane spotting lately as we are right in the path of planes heading for the airport. The schedule is on the airport website… so fun!
I’d also love to see your map covered in pins! We’re in Drysdale, Victoria, Australia.
How lovely to see people commenting from all over the world! We are down the road in Meadowridge, Cape Town!
I visit your blog from Frankfort,Ketucky in the USA.
We hail from Salt Lake City, Utah, United States!
Hello from the USA – specifically North Carolina – See if you can find my city on your map – Our family lives close to Statesville. Thanks for all the wonderful posts and instagram shorts – we follow you almost every day (if our craziness doesn’t get in the way ; >)
Muizenberg Cape Town!!
I love reading everybody’s whereabouts! I should do the same on my blog 🙂
We’re from Johannesburg. And it seems we’re the first!
These look like so much fun! I am in Tacoma, Washington
We are just a few months into homeschooling and I’m just now finding my feet. I want to thank you so much for your inspiration every day. These cards look great! we are in Parklands Cape Town – Elaine 🙂
Hay Elaine… thanks for stopping by and the introduction, good to meet you. Wishing you all the best on your homeschooling journey!!!