Teaching students simple geography lessons about oceans and continents is a must-do. A few times I’ve asked my students what country and state we live in, and I get responses like, “We live in the country of California and the continent of Mexico.” I’m dead serious! (I teach in Southern California)
When I heard this, I knew it was time to get VERY serious about how I teach geography.
Just reminding students and asking them from time-to-time geography questions, is not enough. It doesn’t happen through osmosis.
The Importance of Teaching Oceans and Continents
Your students in upper grades, need to have fun and engaging lessons about geography. It’s the foundation of Social Studies. I found that students learn about the oceans and continents when it is in context. So just don’t have students memorize a list of names. I guarantee they will forget it. Make geography meaningful!
How to Teach Upper Elementary Students World Geography
Teaching your students basic geography does not have to take a long time. You can easily teach it in a week. Here are some simple ideas to get you started.
#1 Show Colorful and Real-Life Images of Countries and Continents
My go-to way to teach students about continents and oceans is to show pictures of some of the countries within the continent. I choose pictures that are colorful and vibrant.
Students need to see images of these countries with iconic symbols and places of interest. These images start some real conversations about the culture of the people and current events.
Don’t want to deal with the hassle of creating a Google Slides Presentation and guided notes. I’ve done the work for you! Grab the lesson HERE.
If you have traveled outside of the country, show your pictures to students. Bring in souvenirs if you have them. I was given a scarf from India by a friend who went there and I always show it to my students.
Kids love to see and touch things. If you have anything extra special, be sure to place it in a ziplock bag before passing it around.
Not only will sharing your travel experiences inspire your students to one day visit these places, but you will build that personal connection with your students that is so important.
#2 Lesson Plans to Teach Major Countries and Oceans
There are so many countries within some of the continents. It’s not worth the time to go into depth on too many countries. I just picked a few that I think are popular travel destinations and that most students may have heard about.
Here are the countries we focus on:
North America: Canada and Mexico
South America: Brazil and Peru
Europe: France and Italy
Africa: Egypt and Tanzania
Asia: India, China, and Japan
Australia
I created a Google Slides Presentation to show students images of each country while they take guided notes. These guided notes are great because they hold students accountable while you are teaching and they are notes your students can refer back to.
They glue these notes in their Social Studies notebook and have them for the whole year.
#3 Play a Geography Review Game
Making geography fun is easy when you play a game. Whenever you say, “We are going to play a game”, it’s an instant attention grabber. Here are a few ideas:
Split your class up into teams and show them slides with questions like: “In what continent is Italy located?” Give them 10 seconds to answer the question. When time is up, they get a point if their answer is correct. If not, the other team has an opportunity to answer. The team with the most points wins!
Jeopardy Labs is a free website with Jeopardy games already created. I use this one in my class and it’s perfect for 5th grade students.
This isn’t a game per se but my students have to come up with 10 questions to ask their partner. Be sure to give examples like: What country is north of the United States? Or What ocean borders Europe? They are allowed to use their Social Studies books or the computer to come up with questions.
Once they have written all their questions, they have about 5 minutes to work with a partner to ask them their questions.
#4 Give a Geography Quiz
To hold your students accountable, they will need to take a geography quiz. I have my students practice on a digital version that they do on their computers and then I give them a quiz printed on paper. The quiz is simple: label the 7 continents.
However you decide to teach your students geography, just remember that you are empowering your students with a solid foundation of some fundamental knowledge. You got this! Giselle
