I did a goggle search on how to memorize countries and found that ehow.com provides a list of comprehensive steps to achieving it.
In summary,
1) Break down the world by continents and work on one continent at a time.
2) Write the country names down (I skipped this step as my kids are too young, will introduce this later to them)
3) Use peg words
4) Make up a song or story
5) Color maps
6) Go online for visual aids (free map puzzles)
I customized the above approach for my kids (4yrs old and 2.5yrs old) as the focus was not on how to spell the countries. So I ordered GeoPuzzles (a set of 5 continents) and Geography Songs (See link below). I play the music CD as background music initially while they were working on the puzzles. The tunes are so catchy that soon, my 4yr old son is singing the lyrics of the song and both of them ask for the music whenever they are in the car. The GeoPuzzles helped the boys to recognize the shape and location of the countries (the bright colors helped a lot). The songs help reinforced the names of the countries. This approach is so successful that it beats those boring flashcards hands down! The GeoPuzzles are so educational that even my husband and I are learning at the same time.
As an inspiration, watch this Youtube video when Aiden Silva, a 2yr old kid, was featured recalling all the names of countries and their capitals, that he had learned from playing with GeoPuzzles.
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