Continents and Oceans!

We worked on the geography of continents and oceans this week. The objectives were that students would know what oceans and continents are, and be able to write the names of them on a worksheet.

Rachel, Jessica, and I had a planning session where we all brainstormed ideas about how to integrate music into this upcoming unit. Somehow we came up with the idea to use a song to help the kids memorize the continents and oceans by singing a song and having them do hand motions that represented the different places on the map. 

Rachel had mentioned a song/video she had used in the past on youtube that wasn't very good. I did some searching too and discovered that there are DOZENS of songs on youtube about learning the continents and oceans but they almost entirely terrible. They are either not helpful in learning the continents, musically uninteresting, or just irritating. So I wrote my own continent song and made a video:

I think the kids really enjoyed it. Here they are doing the hand motions that map out the continents as the video plays.

I didn't have time to do an oceans song as well, so we kept it a little simpler with just a game and hand motions. I meant to add some music in so kids could do a call and response as I quizzed them about the oceans, but we didn't quite get to it. The students filled out their map worksheets and I'm looking forward to seeing how they did! The plus of using the video is that Rachel will be able to use it in future years if she wants to. Next week, land forms!