Hands-on Learning: Rocks and Minerals (FREE Cards)

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Oh here we are again, my son’s favourite topic: rocks! Last year we worked on identifying the types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.  This year, I added minerals to our studies, to advance our studies in the Rock Cycle.
This years’ objectives for  Rocky Cycle study:

1. Review the classification of rocks
2. Identify the characteristics of rocks
3. Identify the characteristics of minerals
4. Difference between rocks and minerals
5. Products of rocks and minerals

Materials used:

• Igneous rock collection
• Metamorphic rock collection
• Sedimentary rock collection (I don’t have this)
• Minerals collection.  I purchased the mineral collection from Learning Resources when it was on sale in Amazon last year. 
• Digital microscope (optional)
• Rock and Fossil Hunter Book  A really good book that provides a table of rocks and minerals, with lots of experiments and activities.

This is how we worked on each rock.  I created learning cards for each collection, the links are at the end of this post.
  Comparing rocks and minerals
Comparing Pyrite (fools’ gold and real gold)
Colours of minerals.  Trying to draw and identify the colours of each minerals.


Rocks vs Minerals.  Combined a few igneous, metamorphic and minerals then have Mavi sort them according to:  minerals, rocks and “not sure”.  Mavi had so much fun here!
  Looking closely.  We used our digital microscope (husband provided this) to have a closer look for our rocks, to check for some crystal formations :)

Metamorphic

 Igneous

 Minerals

FREE printable files:

• Igneous Rocks
• Metamorphic Rocks

You can also purchase an entire pack of rock materials (I suggest this!).  If you have a budget, it's better to get them all at once so you can pull out a prolific rock study.  And of these two would be perfect!

• Rock and Fossil Collection
• Earth Science Collection

Geological Time Scale with Safari Toobs

Last year, I was able to purchase the Cambrian and Prehistoric Life Toobs from Amazon because it was on sale.  I’ve always wanted to have them so we can use the figures in our Geological Time lesson. Remember the first time Mavi and I had the lesson at home? It was a hit! He love it so much! His interest came to light when he started reading the Universe Trilogy:

Born with a Bang

Lava to Life

Mammals who Morph

After which he started to do his own “timeline” by connecting the dots in the stories (based on the books).  Because we didn’t have the appropriate figures, our representation of the timeline is incomplete.  And finally, these toobs were on sale and we just have to finish what we started!

So here are the additional toobs that we used (aside from the dinosaur toobs)":

The Cambrian Toob. Loooove them! They are so colourful and the details! OMG!

The Prehistoric Life Miniatures.  Love this well!  Too bad it doesn’t have enough animal figures on it though. But we love it anyway.

So here are my boys, Mavi putting things in action.  I made the paper mat. I simply added the label on the side.

And Vito, taking away the items from the mat and destroying everything that Mavi has created LOL.

Ahhh… here it is! I finally got the chance to snap a photo of Mavi’s work while the little one is napping.

Pictures below how Mavi would research each of the figures.  Yes I’m beginning to teach him to do research using the web.  He’s getting there, he loves reading out loud his discoveries (soon I’ll teach him how to take down notes!).  I told him we can do research in books and in the internet nowadays.  I also made labels for each figures.  They are actually etched on each but it so difficult to read. 

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Easy Rock Projects

We’ve accomplished three projects during our Rock Study. We had activities that can identify minerals in the rocks and an activity that familiarizes with the famous monuments and rock formations.

Activity 1:  Acid Test

What you need:  rock samples, vinegar and bowl.

Drop a rock into the vinegar.  If gas bubbles form, then it contains minerals called carbonates.

 

It’s unfortunate my camera cannot capture the bubbles this rock produces.  Mavi was ecstatic when he saw the bubbles coming out!

Activity 2:  Specific Gravity Test

What you need:  rock samples, weighing scale, notepad and pen, measuring cup/jug, water.

Choose a rock and weigh it.  Make a note of its mass (in grams).  Fill the measuring cup/jug to 200ml mark with water and carefully place the first rock sample into the water.  Look carefully at the scale on the cup/jug to read off the new water level.    Make a note of the new level of the water.

          

By dividing the mass of the sampled rock by its volume gives you its specific gravity.

Activity 3:  Modeling Rock Formations

What you need:  Playdough/Clay and Rock Formations picture cards

A Study of Rocks

My Mavi has always been fascinated with rocks.  He's been obsessing with rocks and dinosaurs since he discovered Dinosaur Train.  Wei have piles of rocks in our backyard that he had collected for some time now and he considered it his precious collection.  We've already had our experiment on Rock Cycle and it was a hit.

Thus, I was inspired to pull out this study to feed his interest.  I purchased GeoSafari's  Igneous  and Metamorphic Rocks, collected more rocks from seaside and borrowed books from the library to completed our rock study.

Materials:

1. Rocks:  GeoSafari Igneous Rocks and Metamorphic Rocks (links at the bottom of the post)

Books: Rocks and Minerals and Rocks and Fossils

FREE Igneous Rocks Printable File by Pinay Homeschooler

FREE Metamorphic Rocks Printable Fileby Pinay Homeschooler

 

FREE Famous Rock Formations Printable File by Pinay Homeschooler

Rock Cycle image from here

 

Activity 1:  We looked into the different Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks.  Using a magnifying glass, we examine our specimens.  We look into their colors, shapes and hardness.

           

As we do, we placed the number on each rock to mark it.  The GeoSafari comes with an information each of each rock.  This was very very helpful in learning about each rock type.

 

 

Activity 2:  Match the rocks with the cards.  I made matching cards for each rock and Mavi worked on them.  He loved it!  It was quite tricky as he described it because at times, some rocks look similar. 

 

Here he is taking notes of the lesson. 

Part of studying the rocks, I also made these cards which shows some famous rock formations that are made of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic.  He was so happy to see the Giant's Causeway as we've been there a few years ago.

 

We still have a few more things to do to complete this lesson. I will talk about these these activities in my next post.

Activity 3:  Specific Gravity Test

 

Activity 4:  Acid Test

My next post would be about the experiments mentioned above and we'll try to mold some rock formations we've looked into using a clay.

More activities here
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Modeling Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic Rocks

It's difficult to explain to a 5 year old how rocks are formed.  Good thing, we read this book Rocks and Minerals (Investigations) , it showed us how to make igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks in ways that a child can easily grasp the concept.

Igneous Rocks.  These rocks are formed when hot molten rocks, magma or lava are cooled into solid.  Here melt the sugar and let it solidify. 

Heat brown sugar with little water on it into high temperature. Mix the sugar and water while it is heating.  Allow it to boil for a while, but don't burn it (turn into black).  When it is piping hot, pour the mixture into a cool baking try.  I placed our sugar mixture into a chilled baking paper. After a few minutes, the sugar will turn into a glassy and brittle toffee.  This process is similar to how igneous rocks are formed and their characteristics which are glassy or smooth and grainy.

My son can't get enough so we made a second version. This time, we poured the boiling sugar mixture in a bowl filled with cold water.

Sedimentary Rocks.  These rocks are formed as small particles of sand, minerals, shells, mud or any matter accumulate at the bottom of the seas, lakes or in deserts. 

  

A multi-layer of sandwich is like a strata rock.  The first layer is a slice of bread, and each filing is laid on top with more slices of bread.

We prepared two sandwiches here, and Mavi's version is the one with sausage and cheese. Notice the differences in the thickness and colors of layers.  Similar to the characteristic of a sedimentary rock.

Metamorphic Rocks.  Metamorphic means "change".  These are formed when igneous or sedimentary rocks are subjected to high temperatures or are crushed by high pressures underground.  So to create our metamorphic rocks, we used our sedimentary rock models and added pressure (Mavi) and heat (mine) on them.

            

We enjoyed our snacks that afternoon.  It was a fun preparing the sandwiches and a good way to learn.

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Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
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Layers of the Earth (Free Printable)

This topic is somewhat advance for my 4 year old.  But you see last week, he watched an episode of  The Backyardigans about the “Old Gushie” a volcano about to erupt.  The Backyardigan friends travel down into the Earth to stop a boulder from plugging Old Gushie before it can break the Earth into half.

That’s how we ended up learning about the Earth’s layer as he was so curious of where the hot liquid lava from the volcano came from.  Materials I used were the Layers of the Earth Nomenclature Cards which I downloaded from The Helpful Garden, Layers of the Earth fact book which I made and can be downloaded for FREE (see link below) and an illustration of the Earth’s layers (colored papers). 

Here’s how my fact book looks like.  Sorry for the blurry image, it’s been so  dark lately and I find it difficult to have a decent macro shot.

Here he is working on the 3-part cards and fact book. 

 

If you’d like to have a copy of the fact book, you can click the picture below to download it for free.

We also made  Sun and Earth miniature using a Styrofoam balls. We ended up hanging them in his room when we’re the paints dried up.

I was too tired to prepare a playdough for this lesson so I just relied on the craft papers for the demonstration.  But I promise to do it next time as I know he would love to create the layers using playdoughs. 

As seen on the picture he’s labeling each layers. I always include a writing exercise in every activity we have to improve his handwriting.

And later on decided to write in “Chinese” characters as what he described it LOL. 

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