DIY Homeschool World Map with Magnetic Frame

Hi friends! If you follow me on Instagram and watch my IG stories, then you would have seen a whole tour of our homeschool room. It’s one of my favorite rooms in our house. I’m excited to have finally hung up our world map on the wall using a DIY magnetic frame. Here’s how I did it:

I picked up several packages of these heavy duty 1-inch magnets from Home Depot, along with some quick-drying glue, and four 1×2 boards. This is the world map I bought.

First, measure and mark where you want the magnets to be on the board. Mine are about 6 inches apart. Next, using a drill/driver fitted with a 1-inch forstner bit, bore a hole where you made your marks. Go slowly and go back and forth, fitting the magnet into place until it’s flush with the surface of the wood. Take care not to bore the hole too deep. You don’t want the magnets to sit too far into the wood, otherwise the magnetic pull will be drastically reduced. You want the magnets to still be able to work, without sticking out that the boards don’t come together neatly. Hope that made sense…

After you bore the hole, squeeze a small amount of glue and drop the magnet in. Allow it to dry completely. Repeat this process with the other boards. Also, be sure that you’re placing the magnets in so that you don’t have opposing forces with the other side.

Ensure that your measurements are accurate so that the magnets align with the opposite board.

Because our world map is so large, it was a two person job to hang it up. First, I hung the top board up like so:

Then my husband held the map in place while I snapped the other board into place, sandwiching the map in between. We did the same thing for the bottom boards as well, but because the magnetic boards were too heavy to hang on their own, I used my cordless brad nailer and shot a few brad nails through the boards to attach it to the wall to help support the weight.

Please excuse the wrinkles in the map in the photo below… this is what happens when you leave the map on the floor to flatten out and you have a 3- and 5-year-old in the house. No matter how many times I told the tiny humans NOT TO TOUCH THE MAP OR I WILL DESTROY YOU, these wrinkles mysteriously appeared. Hmph.

Take it from me: don’t unroll your map until the last humanly possible moment or you get THIS:

Yes, it’s driving me bonkers too, but I’m learning not to sweat the small stuff. Especially since I know that my kiddos will be using it as a trapeze at some point in the near future. #Icantwin