Surfing the Amazon with Little Passports

June has come and gone, and our globetrotting adventures continue... even though we haven't spent a dime or plane tickets or gasoline! Little Passports is a monthly subscription service that follows the adventures of characters Sam and Sofia as they travel to a new country each month. Each month children get their own package in the mail containing games, toys and activities, all related to the country that Sam and Sofia are visiting. The Little Passports company has generously sent us a couple of mailings to try out. and it has been a wonderful way for the kids to "travel" on a staycation budget.

My kids really enjoyed the First Month Explorer Kit , especially my 8 year-old daughter Pea, so when our first Monthly Adventure Kit arrived in the mail, I knew I could look forward to an afternoon or two of peace and quiet while they were engrossed in fun, educational activities. This month, Sam and Sofia visited Brazil, so everything in the mailing featured something about the geography and culture of Brazil. We received a worksheet, a geode, Sam and Sofia's Brazil diary entry to read, some cute stickers, a wooden toucan puzzle, and a boarding pass with a code to access some fun online games.

The only problem we're having with the Little Passports packages is kind of a good one, because it shows that The Pea is actually using and enjoying it: with all the activity sheets she has gone through in just 2 Little Passports mailings, the cute little cardboard travel suitcase that came with the First Month Explorer Kit is already a mess. So if there's anything I'd add to the product line, it would be a folder to store all of the activity sheets and a ring binder where kids could collate the Sam and Sofia diary pages that comes with each monthly mailing (and they would have to be small enough to fit into the suitcase, of course). They could could be available for parents to purchase separately. Or even better, they could be included in succeeding Monthly Adventure Kits, which don't contain as much cool stuff as the First Month Explorer Kit -- even though each month costs the same, $10.95.

Of course, you could always just do what The Pea did and staple all the diary entries together and all the activity sheets together. That solved the paper problem in a cheaper (though not as pretty) way, and now it'll be easier to organize future mailings. And that's the nice thing about Little Passports -- that each mailing is different, so your children look forward to each and every package. And they keep learning about new countries every month. Keep up the good work, Little Passports!