Oceans, Continents, and Directions, Oh My!

When I purchased a subscription to National Geographic Kids magazine for my son, they sent us an inflatable globe. He has been fascinated with it ever since it was filled with my husband�s hot air.

All on his own he began asking me to name a country for him to find. Of course, I didn�t hesitate to honor his request, even writing some of their names down so he could find them easier. When he had trouble, I found myself saying things like, �Look in North America,� �It�s a country in Asia,� or �First find Africa.� Each time, all I got was a blank stare. My son didn�t know the seven continents!

This activity is meant to fix that.

To start, we read a great book that shared information about the terrain, location, peoples, and animals on the Earth�s seven different continents.

Afterwards, I gave my son a printed map of the earth with no labels. I had written the following on the bottom:

North America � green

South America � brown

Europe � purple

Africa - yellow

Asia � red

Australia/Oceania � orange

Antarctica � blue

I asked my son to identify the continents from memory and color each according to this key. He remembered North America, South America, and Antarctica but needed to review Bobbie Kalman�s book again for a refresher to label the others. (And all the little islands off the coast of the continents, which continent do those belong to? We definitely needed the book�s map to answer those questions!)

When my son had color-coded all seven continents, I added their names and had him draw a compass rose on his map. Then I gave him directional clues to help him label the oceans. I said things like �The Pacific Ocean is west of North America� and �The Indian Ocean is south of Asia.� (I helped him with the spelling until all five oceans were added.)

I could tell he was proud of himself. At bedtime, I told him he had five more minutes to look at books before it was �lights out.� He asked to look at his new map instead!

Our continents activity was inspired by a blog postover at 2 Love Learning (if you haven�t stopped there, do!).