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Their First

A first session together ·

Find Where You Live: A First Session with Their First Maps

The first time on Their First Maps works best side by side: one screen, one curious child, one grown-up to read. Start somewhere you know, travel to someone you love, then go somewhere neither of you has been.

Home, then grandma’s, then somewhere new

  1. Open the map together. On a phone held upright it opens on your part of the world; on a computer, on the whole world.
  2. Find your country. Tap it, or type its name into Find a place. The map zooms in.
  3. Point to home. Your town may not have a drawing, since the map paints big cities and famous landmarks. Point to roughly where you live, then tap the nearest drawing and read its story.
  4. Visit someone you love. Find where grandma lives, or a cousin or a friend who moved away. Trace the way there with a finger, over land and across water.
  5. Go somewhere new. Press Surprise me and land in a place neither of you has been.

“Here we are. Grandma is all the way over here. What do we pass on the way?”

Reading a story card aloud

The map has no sound, so you are the voice. Every card holds an opening sentence, What makes it special, and a few Quick facts. The Great Barrier Reef’s card, for example, opens with “The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system” and has the quick fact “Corals are animals, not plants.”

With a four-year-old, read the first sentence and one fact, no more. Then look at the painting together and let them tell you what they see.

“Corals are animals, not plants! What else do you think lives there?”

With an eight-year-old, let them read What makes it special themselves, then open More about… for the longer story. Open Sources and look at where a fact came from. “How do they know that?” is a fine question to ask on any card.

A game of “What’s over there?”

The map names the oceans (the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic and Southern) and a few seas, such as the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. It does not label the continents, so those are yours to name aloud.

  1. Press Whole world. Put a finger on home and point across the nearest ocean.
  2. Take turns: one of you names an ocean, the other finds a drawing on the far side and taps it.
  3. With older children, name the continent a drawing sits on before you open its card.

“If we sailed across this ocean, what would we find over there?”

The languages you speak at home

The map reads in eleven languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Tagalog. If your family speaks one of them, pick it from the language menu at the top. Country names, ocean names and stories change together, and the place you had open comes along.

Try reading a card in one language, then the same card in the other. A grandparent can read the story in the language they grew up with, and Copy link lets you send them a place you found together.