Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.
Using games in your homeschool is an effortless way to teach your children. Games make learning fun. You don’t have to prepare or teach any lesson plans. You just get to play together! Continent Race by Byron’s Games is one such geography game that we’ve been playing as a family that’s growing our knowledge of the countries of the world without even trying.
The Story Behind Continent Race Geography Game
Created by a kid for kids, the concept of Continent Race started during the 2016 summer Olympics. A six year old boy named Byron was in the children’s hospital for a month where he helped keep track of all the different country medals being awarded.
Thanks to a challenge from Mrs. Ellen Donovan, Byron created a game using the flags of each country. He wanted to help other kids pass the time doing something fun while they were recovering in the hospital. Byron’s compassion is evident as part of the proceeds from every game purchased is donated to children’s charities. You can meet Byron in these short videos.
How to Play Continent Race
Game Contents
Continent Race includes a world map game board, five continent lists with maps on the flipside, 205 country cards showing flags, country names and their capital cities, and three Antarctica wild cards.
Online Resources to Support the Game
You might find it handy to print out the country name pronunciation guides for each continent.
If you want to keep track of all the rounds you play as a family, you can download a printable score card.
Byron’s Games also provides flag coloring templates for the different countries organized by continent. You could use these flags to keep track of the countries your child collects during each game or just for fun.
How Continents are Represented
At first I was confused and somewhat concerned to see that there are only five continent groups represented in the game. My son had just learned that there were seven continents! As you get familiar with the game however, you understand why it was designed like this. The author even explains the reasoning behind that decision in the additional information/frequently asked questions section of the directions.
Since you’d only need to collect one card for Antarctica and a few for North America, collecting these continents would be too easy, or too difficult, depending on how you see it. So Antarctica became a wild card. If you draw one you can use it for any country card to complete a suit. North America was combined with South America to make “The Americas.” By doing this the geography game has five suits to correspond with the five Olympic rings.
All of the countries are organized by color. On the map, the Americas are red, Europe is blue, Africa is yellow, Asia is purple, and Australia/Oceania is green. Each country card matches the colors on the map, so it’s easy to learn what continents the cards belong to at first glance.
Object of the Geography Game
Each player starts with seven continent cards. The object is to collect enough cards to make continent groups. For Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe, that means four cards for each group. For the Australia/Oceania continent you need only two.
The winner is the person who collects enough cards to complete at least three continent groups, or suits. You can make it advanced level by expecting players to collect all five continent groups.
To start your turn you draw a card. If you can make a continent group you put down your cards and call out the countries. When we played we also located each country on the big map game board making sure every other player saw where we pointed.
To end your turn you either discard, if you didn’t make a continent group, or you draw enough cards to make your hand have seven cards again.
Ways to Add Challenge
Orange Mystery Cards
Every time we played the game my kindergartener was participating, so we never tried the advanced level play. For this you add a stack of orange country cards to the deck. Because these cards are orange, you have to guess what continent they belong to. When you draw an orange mystery card, you can consult the map game board or the continent lists for help. If you get stumped call out “Mystery Continent,” and the other players can help you identify it.
Challenge Cards
If you draw a card with the symbol “C” surrounded by stars, you can challenge another player to a one-on-one country naming challenge. Both players first take a brief fifteen-second peek at the country map or country list to refresh their memories. Then they take turns calling out countries until someone can’t name one. The last person to name a country wins, earning him the chance to draw three additional country cards to exchange with any other three cards in his hand.
My husband and I were the only ones who participated in the challenge cards. For me, the challenge cards added a fun, competitive element and helped me remember the countries better than playing only the basic level game.
Adapting the Challenge Cards
If you feel your kids don’t know enough of the countries to try the challenge, you could make adaptations to make your kids more successful. One simple idea is to allow more than fifteen seconds to study the map.
Another adaptation I would like to implement is to provide a list of the first initials of the countries in the continent groups. Then I would let my kids refer to it during the challenge to help jog their memory.
A less competitive idea is to see if the two players can work together to come up with five or ten different countries from the continent, depending on their ability. As they learn more and more countries, make it more challenging by asking for ten to twenty countries or all the countries. If they succeed then both players can draw three new cards.
What We Like About Continent Race Geography Game
Quality of Game board
The Continent Race game board is a beautiful world map. It’s colorful and a great size for your table. It has each country labeled as well as the oceans.
Note: Not all countries are represented. My husband loves to surf, and so he knows that Tahiti has great waves. But when he went to locate it on the game board, it wasn’t there!
Information on Country Cards
I like how each card shows the flag and the capital city of the country. These are two more pieces of visual information that help kids learn effortlessly.
Simplicity of Game Play
Continent Race is not hard to play. You don’t have to know where countries are located before you play. In fact, you will learn where countries are in the world the more you play.
Our son just turned six, and he was capable of playing this game just as his much as his thirteen year old sister.
Adaptability of the Geography Game
Continent Race is designed for two or more players, ages seven and up. I played a two-person game with my son, a three-player game with my husband and daughter, and a few four-player games with our whole family. I love how this game is adaptable to suit any number of players and ages of players. It’s hard to find games that work for such a wide age-span. It’s great for the whole family.
There are many ways to adapt the game level to make it basic or more challenging. We found that we liked the advanced level of play where you had to collect cards from all five continent groups and using the challenge cards. I can see my daughter playing this game with her teenager friends and using the orange mystery cards to add more challenge.
We loved playing Continent Race from Byron’s Games. You can find out what other families think about this educational geography game at the Homeschool Review Crew.
