Every Kid Should Know the Continent Song
Teaching my third graders about the 7 continents used to be such a drag. They didn’t understand the difference between a city, state, country, or continent. Insert sigh here!
I began with the lack of background knowledge to help clear up the confusion between city, state, country and continent. Luckily, my kiddos’ brains understood my visual and grasped this concept much faster than classes in the past (who knew a simple drawing would make all the difference!).
Want this visual? Snag it here!
However, I needed something to hook my kiddos so they would be interested in adding on to the background knowledge and diving into continents (places they didn’t know existed and feel no connection to as a result). I remembered learning about the continents when I was a kid, but all I could remember was some silly song. After much brainstorming, the song lyrics came back to me and I knew immediately I was going to teach my kiddos the song.
Please forgive my non-singing voice as you listen to the rhythm of the song below:
I was starting to feel good about the potential success of this unit. I cleared up a lot of geography confusion + had my kids eating out of my hand with excitement to learn more about the continents being that everywhere they traveled in the school building they sang that dang song! I needed to continue that enthusiasm but add in the content now.
Designing an engaging, informative unit on continents was no doubt my next homework assignment. I put together a presentation of facts + corresponding questions to help kiddos reference a text to locate answers for each of the seven continents. (Any excuse to connect other subject areas, right?)
Click the image above to access this unit in my TpT store. Below is a quick preview of what is included.
(Don’t worry, this bundle can easily be used with multiple grade levels!)
To this day my kiddos still talk about this unit and all the fun they had learning about fun, new, far-away places. Their favorite part, however, was learning that continent song. I now know the secret to an impressionable lesson is a song!
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How have you taught your kiddos about the 7 continents?
About the author, Gretchen
I am a teacher trainer and coach. Working elbow to elbow with teachers and teacher leaders to ensure instructional proficiency and student achievement soar lights me up. We have a real need in our nation for strong educators to remain in the field. My blog, book, podcast, courses and instructional materials are geared towards empowering teachers (and those that lead them) to receive the support needed to grow and thrive today, tomorrow and always.