Games / Learning Games / Atlas Explorer / Guide
Atlas Explorer
Nova the red panda flies a hot air balloon over a real map of the world, and your child is the navigator. Find the continents, then the states, then countries and capitals, collecting a passport stamp for every trip.
What your child learns
- The 7 continents and 5 oceans, usually taught in Grades 1 and 2.
- All 50 US states, grouped into four regions (the West, the Midwest, the South and the Northeast), and all 50 state capitals. These come up in Grades 3 to 5.
- 80 countries on six continents, with their capitals.
- Map skills: north, south, east and west, and the habit of finding a place by working out where it is from somewhere you already know.
Every place has a fact card, written for kids and checked for accuracy. Alaska is more than twice as big as Texas. Ecuador is named after the equator. Africa has 54 countries, more than any other continent.
How it works
The game is split into trips, and each trip is eight places. There are three tracks:
| Track | Trips |
|---|---|
| Planet Earth | Continents, Oceans |
| United States | The West, The Midwest, The South, The Northeast, Capital quest |
| Around the world | North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania |
A question is one of three kinds. In Which one is this? a place lights up and your child taps its name from three or four buttons. In Find it, your child taps the place on the map. In Capital questions they pick a capital city. The map zooms with the + and − buttons, and you can drag to move around. If a tap lands near several small places, like the states in New England, the map zooms in first so a small finger doesn't get punished for a near miss.
Prompts are read aloud and shown on screen, and every fact card has a speaker button.
How it adapts
The age setting decides where your child starts. Ages 4 to 8 begin with Planet Earth. Ages 8 to 11 begin with the United States. Every place has its own practice level. A new place starts as a Which one is this? question, then moves to finding it on the map, and later to capitals. Places your child misses come back sooner, and ones they know well come back less often.
After a wrong tap, the game names the place your child picked and draws a red arrow toward the right one, with a direction hint like "Texas is south of Oklahoma." After a second miss, Nova shows the answer and that place comes back a few turns later.
Seven or eight right on the first try earns 3 stars, and five or six earns 2. Each trip you finish puts a stamp in the passport, and 3 stars turns it gold. The Capital quest opens after any United States trip. The passport also keeps every fact card your child has unlocked, so they can read them again later. Stickers for our shared Sticker Book come with the first trip, new stamps and a first 3 star trip.
Today's trip
Today's trip is eight places that are the same for everyone that day. Younger kids get continents and oceans, the middle age group adds US states, and ages 8 to 11 get states, countries and capitals. Finishing it builds a day streak.
Tips for grown-ups
- Find your home state together, then name the states that touch it.
- Ask "Which ocean would we cross to fly from here to Africa?" and trace the path on a globe or a paper map.
- Pick one fact card a day and look up a picture of that place together.
- When a trip ends, ask your child which place was hardest to find and why. Small states and countries are hard for everyone.
Privacy and safety
Atlas Explorer has no ads, no accounts and no leaderboards, and it doesn't track your child. Stamps, fact cards and progress are saved only in the browser on your device. The maps are drawn from public domain Natural Earth and US Census data that's built into the game, so it doesn't load anything from other sites. It's free and plays in the browser on a phone, tablet or computer.
Questions
What age is Atlas Explorer for?
Ages 6 to 11. Younger kids start with continents and oceans. States and capitals suit Grades 3 to 5, and countries and capitals suit older kids.
Does it cover all 50 states and capitals?
Yes. All 50 states are split into four regional trips, and the Capital quest covers all 50 state capitals.
How many countries are in the game?
80 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania, most with a capital question and a fun fact.
Is Australia a continent or a country?
Both. In the game the continent is called Australia, and the fact card explains that it is part of a larger region called Oceania with New Zealand and the Pacific islands.
Is the map accurate?
Yes. It's a real map built from Natural Earth and US Census boundary data, not a cartoon.
Is Atlas Explorer free?
Yes, it's free with no ads and nothing to buy.
