Seven Continents Word Search for Kids: From Africa to Antarctica

How many continents are there? Most schools in the English-speaking world teach seven, and this puzzle has all of them: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. In much of Latin America and southern Europe children learn a shorter list instead, with the Americas as one continent and Australia as part of Oceania.

The grid is 12 x 12, larger than most easy puzzles, because North America and South America need twelve squares each. Antarctica, the fifth largest continent, is the only one with no permanent population.

Seven Continents Vocabulary: 7 Words to Find

Words run across, up and down; 3 of the 7 read backwards. The longest words are North America and South America, with 12 letters each.

Africa: The second-largest continent, with 54 countries, crossed by both the equator and the two tropics.
Antarctica: The frozen continent around the South Pole, with no countries and no permanent population.
Asia: The largest continent, with about 60% of the world's people.
Australia: The smallest continent, and the only one occupied by a single country.
Europe: A small continent with many countries, joined to Asia along the Ural Mountains.
North America: The continent of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, joined to South America at Panama.
South America: The continent south of Panama, from the Caribbean to Cape Horn, crossed by the Andes and the Amazon.

How to Solve the Seven Continents Word Search

"North America" and "South America" each fill a whole row of the grid: North America reads normally, South America backwards. "Australia", with the only L, reads backwards too. "Antarctica" reads across, "Africa", with the only F, runs upward, and "Asia" and "Europe" run down.

Continents Map Activities for Kids

Label each continent on a blank world map.
Ask which continents the equator crosses.
Put the continents in order of size, from Asia down to Australia.