Description

What our Seven Continents lesson plan includes

Lesson Objectives and Overview: Seven Continents teaches students all about these seven masses of land on our earth. Students will learn facts about each one, such as population and size, and about some of the countries that belong to them. By the end of the lesson, they will be able to locate each continent on a globe or world map. This lesson is for students in 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade.

Classroom Procedure

Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. The materials required for this lesson include blue construction paper, scissors, glue, colored pencils, and a world map for display.

Options for Lesson

Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for ideas to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One idea is to allow students to work in pairs for the activity. If your students are older, you could assign them a specific continent to conduct additional research on. You could also study one continent per week as a class for seven weeks. (Learn Bright has lessons based on individual continents.) One more idea is to have students create a mnemonic device that will help them remember the names of the continents.

Teacher Notes

The teacher notes page includes some additional guidelines and helpful things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. It suggests tailoring the lesson to the age of your students and adding in more information and resources for older students. This page also provides space for any notes you may have as you prepare.

SEVEN CONTINENTS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES

Introduction to the Seven Continents of the World

The Seven Continents lesson plan contains three main content pages. There is also an additional page at the beginning of the lesson that students will use to write out their address from street number to continent. There are two address cards on each page, so you will only need to print half the number of pages as students.

The first of the three content pages explains what a continent actually is: a large mass of land separated by the oceans of the world. The United States is a country in the continent of North America, which lies between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Students will then learn how to order the continents by land mass.

Asia, Africa, North America, and South America

The next few pages describe additional facts about each continent, beginning with Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. Students will learn that Asia is the largest continent in terms of land mass and population. Over 3 billion people live in Asia. Some countries in Asia are India, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. This continent is home to both the Great Wall of China and Mount Everest.

The next largest continent is Africa. Countries here include Egypt, Kenya, and Ethiopia. There are over 50 countries in Africa total. This is also where we would find the Sahara Desert and the longest river in the world: the Nile. Africa is also home to the cheetah, which is the fastest animal in the world. Other animals that live here include wildebeests, lions, and gazelles.

North America is the third largest continent by area. It is home to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and 36 other countries. The third largest river in the world, the Mississippi River, lies on this continent. In addition, this is where we find Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world.

Then we have South America as the fourth largest continent. Except for in Brazil, the people who live in South American countries all speak Spanish. The countries include Peru, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and 10 others. This is where we would find the Andes mountain range, which is the longest mountain range in the world. Additionally, the Amazon Rainforest resides in South America.

Antarctica, Europe, and Australia

Students will next learn about Antarctica, the fifth largest continent on the planet. Unlike all the other continents, Antarctica has no population. People only visit for periods of time, such as scientists who want to study the land. It is both the windiest and the coldest place on Earth. In fact, ice covers about 98% of the continent! There are no countries in Antarctica.

In the next section, the lesson discusses Europe. The six largest or second smallest continent, Europe is home to nearly 40 countries total. One of those countries is its own city, which is Vatican City within the country of Italy. Other countries include the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Turkey, Greece, and Spain. Two well-known landmarks in Europe include the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, and Big Ben in London, England.

Finally, students will learn about the smallest continent in the world. Australia is also its own country. The people here speak English. There are native peoples as well, called Aborigines. This is the continent that is home to the kangaroo. When people say “Down under” or mention the Outback, they are referring to the country or continent of Australia.

SEVEN CONTINENTS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS

The Seven Continents lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. Each worksheet helps solidify what students learned throughout the lesson. Students will be able to demonstrate what they learned in different ways. The classroom procedure guide outlines when to hand out these worksheets to your students.

COLOR THE MAPS ACTIVITY

Students can work with partners if you prefer for the activity portion. There are seven activity worksheets total, one for each continent. For the activity, students will label each land mass and color them different colors. Then they will cut around the borders and glue each onto construction paper to create a world map. The goal is to show the continents in the right places.

MATCH THE FACTS PRACTICE WORKSHEET

For the practice worksheet, students will read through 25 facts. They will then have to match each fact to the continent it represents using the word bank on the right side of the page. All the answers are in the content pages, so you can choose whether or not to allow students to use the content pages for reference.

SEVEN CONTINENTS HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

The homework assignment contains two sections. For the first section, students will reference the map at the top of the page and write which continent each number represents. For the second section, they must look at a list of 20 different countries—such as Egypt, Canada, and Greece—and write which continent each belongs to using the numbers from the first part of the assignment.

Worksheet Answer Keys

This lesson includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and homework assignment. The correct responses are in red to make it easy to compare them to students’ work. There is no answer key included for the activity pages since every student’s world map will look slightly different. You can reference a world map to check the positions and labeling of the continents for that assignment. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.