How to Remember the Seven Continents

Learning the Continents

Try using visual cues while learning to help you remember the continents later. That is, use something like a coloring page of the world to help you visualize where the continents of the world are. Coloring, which is both a tactile and visual experience, will help the continents stick in your brain. Instead of coloring, you could use a geography puzzle to help you learn the continents, which provides a similar experience.

Write the names of the continents over and over in alphabetical order. Similar to coloring, this task is both tactile and visual. As you go along, try writing it without looking at the previous lists you wrote, which will help commit the continents to memory.

Learn something about each continent as you go. By making geography more interesting through other facts, you're more likely to remember what the names of the continents are.

Play a geography game. You can find games online or in person. You will learn while playing, and you'll be having so much fun you won't even realize how much you are retaining.

Quiz yourself. Try using the shapes of continents as flash cards. Write the name on the back of each card in pencil, so you can't see it from the front. Hold up the continent to see if you can remember its name, then check to see if you're correct. Trying to recall will help solidify the continents in your memory. Alternatively, try listing the continents in alphabetical order to see if you can remember them.

Memorization Tricks

Use an acrostic as a mnemonic device. An acrostic is when you use the first letters of each word in a phrase to remember the letters or other words. For instance, one acrostic for remembering continents is "Eat an apple as a snack." The "E" in "Eat" helps you remember "Europe," while the "AN" in "an" reminds you of "Antarctica," and it continues down the line: "A" for "Australia," "AS" for "Asia," "A" for "Africa," "N" for "North America," and "S" for "South America." An alternative to "Eat an apple as a snack" is "Eat an aspirin after a nighttime snack. Another phrase to help you remember the continents is "SEAN got three AAAs," where "SEAN" stands for "South America, Europe, Asia, and North America" and "AAA" stands for Australia, Antarctica, and Africa.

Create a "memory palace" of the seven continents. Cicero outlined this method in his De Oratore as a way to memorize material. In Cicero's method, you create a mental map of a physical place in your head. To memorize new material, you attach pieces of information to each room or place in your head, and you retrieve them by walking through the area in your mind. Try creating a mental map for the continents by imaging yourself walking over the globe with one foot landing in each continent every time you step. Attach the name to each continent as you go. When you need to recall the names, walk around the globe again in your head.

Learn a continent song or poem. Continent songs attach information to familiar tunes to help you remember it. For instance, you can sing "I've got the whole globe in my hands. I've got the whole globe in my hands. I've got the whole globe in my hands. I've got Europe, Africa & Asia in my hands. North and South America in my hands. Australia and Antarctica in my hands. I've got the whole globe in my hands." to the tune of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." Alternatively, try memorizing this poem about the seven continents, which reminds you how to remember them in the poem: "To name the seven continents, think of the letter a,/and when you're down to only one an "e" will save the day!/There is Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Asia, too./The oceans run between us, with waters deep and blue./There is also two America's, North and South you see,/and now you're coming to the end, Europe starts with 'E!'"

Try creating a mental tree. That is, hang the continents off the tree in your mind. You could try going in order from the smallest at the top to the largest at the bottom. By visualizing the continents and their names, you'll be more likely to recall them later.

Create and memorize a story for the continents. Use the continents as the names of children in the story or the destinations that a detective visits around the world to help solve a crime. Keep it short, but use enough detail to make it stick in your head.

Boosting Memory

Get enough sleep. Being sleep deprived can affect your memory. If you get enough sleep, it will help you retain memories as you learn them, and it can also help with recall later.

Eat more salmon. Any food rich in Omega-3s, such as salmon, tuna, walnuts, or Brussels sprouts, is brain food. Though eating a handful of walnuts won't give you the brain power to memorize a phone book in an afternoon, eating these foods over time can increase your memory.

Learn in the afternoons. Some studies have shown afternoons to be the best time of day to help with fact retention, so try studying the continents in the afternoon instead of the morning or night.

Keep your brain engaged. Read something challenging. Play a new board game with friends. Try crossword puzzles or sudoku. By keeping your brain engaged in new activities, you'll keep your brain active, which in turn helps memory.

Take a deep breath. Stress can harm your memory recall when the hormone cortisol is released. By staying calm, you can increase both how much you learn in the moment and what you are able to remember later.

Take a walk. Exercise has been shown to increase the volume of the hippocampus, which is an area in your brain. That increase in size can help your memory. Getting regular exercise can be beneficial to both body and mind.