TOS REVIEW: Wonder Maps- Bright Ideas Press

Through The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew I have received for review Bright Ideas Press new program, Wonder Maps. I received a software download for review. 

Age/Grade: K-12 (and up!)
Cost: $49.95 as either a download only or both download and cd, for Windows or Mac

Software Requirements:
Adobe Reader v. 9.1 or higher

Watch a tutorial of how to use this program and see the many features at Bright Ideas Press website. Really, watch the video. It tells way better than I could about all the features in this program.

WonderMaps is a collection of over 350 maps consisting of World, Historical, Biblical, USA, and also maps to use with Mystery of History I-III.
We don’t use MOH but the maps that pertain to them are still useful. We couldn’t really utilize the answer key maps (since we don’t know what the questions were!) but the others were helpful.

**Click on any image for a larger image- use the back arrow on your browser to come back OR right click and open in new window/tab**

I really like that the maps are customizable. Sometimes I need a map for labeling and/or for coloring (more often the first than the second) but have to hunt down the map I want to use from either books or websites. It is absolutely wonderful to have them all in one place with WonderMaps.

Recently, my ds was studying about the French and Indian War but I couldn’t find a historical map that I could copy so that he could do labeling. I did find one in a book but I’d have to scan it (not a problem), edit it –as in erase all the words that I wanted him to label (eh, still it could be done), and either remove all the color (which I’ve no idea how to do!) or just have him color over or not color at all (it’d just look tacky).

Here’s the map that WM has and the different ways it can be customized!
The first is with all the labels:



And now with only the specifics that I want to be shown when I print the map:

It’s still in color though and the only way that I could see to get rid of the most color was to change the visible layers of the map (and the oceans and waters are still blue):

*each of the above pictures were created by me to show which labels I chose to create my customized map- they do not have the labels 'box' in the corner, it is on the left hand side like the following screenshot*
And here is a MOH map that corresponds to the time/location we were studying- and it is black and white!:

That is just one example of the maps we used. We plan to use this more thoroughly for next school year.  I really like this program. It is easy to use and to find the map I need when I need it. I can filter it to contain only the information that is needed.

Bottomline:
I love this program. I think it is super easy to use and it looks so nice. My son is super excited to use it more (well, he only gets the print-outs for now but I may use it to help him memorize names/places) next year. Because it can be used again and again, the price is reasonable to me. 

Some things that I noticed that could be changed for the better: 

1.From the maps of the French and Indian Wars maps, you might have caught that Fort Duquesne isn’t quite located in the same place on the historical map as it is on the MOH map… that is one thing that I hope will be fixed with future updates of WM. Another strange thing with the maps is that Australia is not listed on the World Map (but you find it by clicking Oceania).That to me is just...odd.

I do wish that the locations of places were all correct on all the maps but I do understand that we are human, bound to make mistakes, and computers only do what they are told. Bright Ideas Press, however, is really a great company and it has been brought to their attention so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this will be corrected with subsequent versions/updates.

2. Only with the United States of America maps can you click on individual states to have a map of that particular state. If you want to look at Quebec, Canada, for example, you have to open the North America map from the World Map screen:

And then click on Canada:

but you can't click on Quebec- or any of the provinces of Canada. It is the same with all of the maps. Only the US map is enabled to see the states.

3. You can't make all the maps black and white; just particular ones. Some are more of a grayish version of the color overlay. I would like all the maps to have the capability to make them b&w like the MOH maps are.


But even with the few things I would suggest that be changed I would definitely still recommend this program. I'm going to be using it like crazy!

 
If you would like to read more reviews for this product, visit the TOS Homeschool Crew blog.



**Disclaimer: I received this product free from Bright Ideas Press via TOS Homeschool Crew in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review; all opinions stated are my own. See Disclosure/Policies.**