Children love to learn about rocks and minerals because they get so much “hands on” learning about a topic they can easily extend with life experience. Here you’ll find some suggestions for helping children explore the differences between different and similarities between various rocks and minerals.
Materials:
Variety of Rocks
(we purchased a kit)
Printable Rocks & Minerals Worksheet
Colored Pencisl
Scale
Nail & Streak Tile
Ruler and String
Suggest Resources for a Unit Study:
Art Project Tutorial:
Materials
Gather a variety of rocks. Variety of Rocks (we purchased a kit) Printable Rocks & Minerals Worksheet, Colored Pencils, Scale, Nail & Streak Tile, Ruler and String
Station 1
Pick a rock! I set out all the different rocks the kids to pick and choose from! You can number the rocks so that children can easily see the name of the rock and write in on their experiment sheet.
Station 2
Experiment sheet. I printed up a bunch of these and left them next to some colored parts of the sheet, and can trace or draw a picture of their rock with the colored pencils. other features.
Station 3
I set up our Pan Balance Scale and layed see how much their rocks weighed in grams
Station 4
I set up our Pan Balance Scale and layed see how much their rocks weighed in grams
Station 5
Just for some extra fun I pulled our Diet Scale (Walmart) and let them also weigh their rocks in ounces. This wasn’t very accurate but it was fun nonetheless!
Station 6
Our final station had a magnifying glass, a nail, and a streak plate. Children used the nail to see if they could scratch the rock, and the streak plate to see if they could write with the rock. I also laid out a ruler and some string for them to take measurements. Then they recorded all their information on their sheet, turned them in and started the process again on a different rock! Lots of fun and lots of learning!
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