Inflatable Globes

This activity can be used to familiarise the children with the globe, the countries of the world and their locations. You will obviously need an inflatable globe (which has the names of the countries on it) before you can carry out the activity.

1. Throw the globe up in the air and let a child catch it. This child should find a country beginning with the letter “A”.
2. When they have found one, they should shout out the name, throw the globe to someone else and shout out the letter “B”.
3. The child who catches the globe should then find a country with a name beginning with the letter “B”. You can continue in this way, working through the alphabet.
4. If you get to “Z”, and you have some more time, start at “A” again, but tell the children they are not allowed to repeat countries which have already been mentioned.
5. If anyone gets stuck, it is handy to have a list of countries which begin with each letter. You can then use this to help anyone who is having problems. A list such as this can be found at the bottom of the page.

Variations

• As well as shouting out the name of the country, the children should also say what continent that country can be found in.
• Have a go at restricting this activity to one of the continents, i.e. only find countries beginning with A, B, C etc., that can be found in Europe.
• If your globe has names of towns and cities on it, use these as well as country names.