Montessori Inspired Continent Activities for Preschoolers

Can’t believe that in a few days, it’ll be Christmas time!  Our days are now filled with random activities which I’d like to share after the holidays.  School break for Mavi will start this Friday and we’ll be able to finally start our holidays!

Anyway, in today’s post I’m sharing how I introduced the continents to Vito.

A few weeks ago, I introduced the continent puzzle to Vito.  We were talking about our families and friends whom we are missing this Christmas because they’re living miles away from us.  I used the puzzle to point out where they are located.  I first introduced each continent to Vito.  I took one continent at a time from the board, named it and gave it to Vito to feel and describe.  Basically he would say the color and if it’s big or small LOL.  As I named each continent, I would also add who in the family lives there.  Then Vito placed them all back together in the puzzle board.

I then introduced the 3 part cards of the seven continents.  After the presentation, I made him match the puzzle pieces to the control cards instead of the picture cards.

Now, the highlight of this activity is for Vito to be able to match words from the labels to that in the control cards!  Yey!  I guided him through it.  First I read the label (he repeated it after me) and told him we’re going to look for it’s match.  I compared the label on each of the control cards and would ask him if it’s a match or not.  He correctly said yes to all the matched labels except for South and North America where he got confused a little bit.  

Finally, we moved to animals.  I told him that just like people, animals also live in different continents.  I first started with the penguin (his favourite), moved on to peacock (place where Grandma lives)… and so on and so forth.  I’m using Schleich animal figures in this one, alternatively, you can also use Safari Toobs.  He enjoyed the last part the most (because of animals) and he kept on getting animals from our bin and asking me where they live!

This was a good introductory lesson on continents.  Based on my experience, kids can easily learn through experience.  Because we’ve been travelling to different countries / continents for the past 8 years, both Mavi and Vito are able to grasp this concept easily.  They can tell that Asia is far away because they know we need an airplane to get there and will take us 2 days!  And just recently our travel to US, another airplane ride for a day to see Aunts and Uncles.

For more details on the seven continents 3 part cards click here or click the image below.  The learning pack includes the 3 part cards, definition cards, and some coloring and activity sheets.

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