Oh, the places you’ll go in Geography! Learning about the seven continents of North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica and Europe can be lots of fun. From the beginning, there are a couple of issues with the idea of the “seven continents” to clarify with students in the U.S.
While students in the United States learn about seven continents, they should be aware that this isn’t true all around the world. As explained by National Geographic, students on other continents, more often learn about six continents. How could this be? We make a distinction between North America and South America but in other parts of the world these two continents may simply be referred to together as the “Americas.” So in other parts of the world, the list of the continents may be the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica and Europe.
The scientific communities often also refer to only six continents but for a different reason, also explained by National Geographic. Show students a map of the continents and ask them to consider why scientist may only look at the world in terms of six continents. If the answer isn’t forthcoming, offer this clue. Scientists often consider continents as one solid landmass. That’s right. Scientist often refer to Europe and Asia as one continent called Eurasia. So the list of continents studied by scientists may be North America, South America, Africa, Australia, Antarctica and Eurasia.
Now that these distinctions are understood, how can you help students remember the names of the seven continents?
This simple teaching tip can help students tremendously to remember the seven continents.
Write the list of the seven continents on the blackboard or the smart board. Make the first letter of each continent bold. For North America and South America, make the letter A in America bold rather than the letters N and S.
North America
South America
Asia
Africa
Australia
Antarctica
Europe
Ask students what they notice about these letters. Yes, six of the continents start with the letter A. One starts with the letter E. We can point out that all of the continents have a vowel. Knowing that all of the continents start with a vowel and that six of them start with an A and one starts with an E, can help students with the list recall.
Taking it a step further with recalling Europe.
Once students remember that one continent starts with the letter E, they may find themselves sitting there trying to phonetically recall a continent name with a letter E sound. It just won’t work. Europe doesn’t sound like it starts with the letter E. Have students say Europe aloud slowly several times. What English word do they hear in the first syllable of Europe?
Yes, it sounds like the word “you’re.” Teach students this phrase to help them recall Europe: “You’re going to have to remember Europe is a continent.”
Here’s another amazing tip to help students with recall and spelling the names of the continents.
Now take that same list of the seven continents and make the last letters bold this time. What do students notice? Yes, all of the continents that start with the letter A, also end in the letter A and the one continent, Europe, that starts with the letter E also ends in the letter E.
Spelling the names of the continents can seem challenging but if they are writing a list and remember that the first and last letters of each continent match, they’ll have at least a simple spelling guideline, perhaps enough to get spell check to recognize the continent.
Having a background in understanding how continents are studied by others and creating memorization tricks can help students successfully recall the names of the seven continents.
