Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Montessori Map Puzzles?

Has anyone ordered map puzzles from Kid Advance?  I have ordered other things from them and been happy with the overall quality for the price.  They are the least expensive I have found, after Adena, but I couldn't find the US map at Adena.  I have looked at Alison's Montessori, but they are more expensive.  Is the quality that much better at Alison's?  And is it worth it for the maps for them to be better quality?  If you have maps, where did you buy yours?

Thanks!

3 comments:

  1. I have purchased from Perrytech Montessori and am very happy!

    I purchased a cheap one from another company and one of the pieces broke within a month.

    Let us know what you decide on! It is always good to hear from others!

    Jody

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  2. I like Alison's better than Adena. I bought a bargain one from Alison's which means that it's chipped on the side, but doesn't affect the performance whatsoever.

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  3. I've been buying my maps one or two at a time when I find a good deal, so I've ended up with maps from about five different places, and there are definite differences. On some of them the pieces are a lot thinner, and one of the used maps I bought with thinner pieces had a couple of chipped pieces. Unfortunately, since I bought it used, I have no idea where it originally came from. The two I got more recently also had thin pieces, but they were in good shape. The seller didn't remember for sure where she got them but thought it was probably Kid Advance or Adena (I suspect from their pictures they both get their stuff from the same Chinese supplier anyway.)

    The one that I know for sure came from IFIT. I bought my USA map from their clearance section. It is one with thicker pieces, but I know at least one of the knobs is in the wrong place (they are supposed to be on the capital city for each state, and Wyoming is way over on the other side of the state) and some of the states are cut out pretty roughly (meaning lines are roundish where they should be more straight and angles are sometimes pointier than they should be). I guess that's what I get for buying clearance! Of course, most of these guys are getting their stuff from China, and you can't expect those Chinese factory workers to care whether they get all their state capitals right.

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