Learning About the Seven Continents

This week we are learning about the seven continents on Earth.  We start off by singing the Continents Song and reviewing how many continents there are and where they are located on our planet.  We follow that with a game.  Some of the games use exercises and others practice throwing and catching a globe ball.  Along with the physical activity, our games include important areas like geography, math (counting and number recognition), color identification, and matching (letter and shape recognition).  These are important components of an early childhood education, along with listening, following directions, cooperation, and teamwork.

A student points to North America on the white board before filling it in on the puzzle below.

Students found the continents and filled in the puzzle pieces.  This student fills in Africa.


This class works together to complete the Continents puzzle.

This student rolls the die to see what number she will get.

A five is rolled and  matched with the continent of Africa.  

We followed that with an exercise done five times.

Classes learned that the earth is 70% water.  A mark was placed on each student's right thumb.  

When a ball was caught, the student had to determine if their thumb was on land or water and mark it on a white board.  At the end of class they made a comparison between catches on land or water.  Water almost always won!

These classmates toss back and forth and prepare to determine whether their right thumb 

lands on water or land.  The student on the right is wearing a shirt with the continents on it.  

There's a mark for land.

This pair of students identified continents by marking their map with tokens.  Each time they had a correct answer they jogged one lap around the gym.  Students love jogging!


This age group rolled a die or dice trying to get numbers 1-7.  Each time they 
got a new number they marked their map with a token corresponding to the 
continent numbers on the whiteboard.  This was followed by bouncing and catching 
two different types of earth balls the number of times indicated on the die or dice.


Working on bouncing and catching the Earth beach ball.

 

Two dice were needed for number 7, Antarctica.
This students counts dots, hoping to have a 7.

After counting dots on the die, a token is placed on the corresponding continent.

An airplane is placed on Australia.

 Students jog the blue line like an airplane visiting Australia.

 The class rolled numbers 1-7 and were able to put an airplane on each continent.

Click here for more pictures of our continents study.

Can you name the seven continents?  

Note: The land in pink is the only continent that is its own country.