About a month ago, while we were on the playground, our students became fascinated with collecting rocks. Day by day, students would run up to the teachers on the playground asking, “What kind of rock do you think this is?” This started a great discussion about rocks, geodes, minerals, and dinosaur bones. A few students emerged as “the dinosaur experts” and when a student found a rock that they thought was a bone, they would scurry off to find the expert and ask their opinion. (In case you were wondering, according to our kindergarten experts, we definitely have Tyrannosaurus Rex bones all over the playground. ? )
This went on for several weeks and our rock collectors grew in numbers. It seemed as if each day another student was discovering beautiful rocks to bring in to the classroom and thus began our rock inquiry. I cleared off our “math table” and students started adding rocks to the table. I placed a few scales, magnifying glasses, sorting circles, rock books, pictures, measuring tape, and clipboards on the table, and the table has been full of scientists investigating our rock collection.
I also displayed my rock book collection in our classroom library.
During guided reading, my young learners were full of questions so we took out our agates and practiced writing and using adjectives by creating a list of words that described them. Then we read an informational text that I wrote for them. (You can find my informational text pack, here.)
My students came up with so many wonders and questions about how rocks were formed and began researching this on their own! They would get books from our library and share facts with their friends. They also wrote about what they were learning about.
During our read aloud time, I made sure I chose books that would answer some of my students questions about how rocks were formed. We also watched a few youtube videos. This was one of their favorite videos. (click here)
After watching a few videos and reading a couple of books, we created an “I see, I think, I wonder” chart. To do this, I gave my students Sharpies and Post It notes and my students got to work.
As they were working, I projected an image of a volcano on my whiteboard.
After they finished a Post It Note, they placed it on the anchor chart and got to work on writing a new one.
At the end of the activity, our chart looked like this.
Many of the “wonders” included questions on HOW and WHY volcanoes blow up. So, we had to go outside to learn more about this.
I partnered my students up and gave each group a funnel, baking soda, and an empty water bottle.
They worked together to add the baking soda to their bottle, and then used our playground pebbles to “hide” the bottle to make it look like a real volcano.
Some of the baking soda got stuck going down the funnel, but my scientists quickly fixed the problem.
After the finishing touches were put in place, we prepared for an eruption!
Students added our vinegar mixture to their volcanoes and watched in anticipation. They ooooohed and aaaaaaahed over the eruptions and eagerly discussed why they thought volcanoes erupt!
The next day, my students began documenting what they were learning. Some of my students chose to do this using clay.
“I am making a cinder cone volcano.”
“Look, mine looks just like this one in the book. I want to make sure I get the top just right.”
Other students documented what they were learning by making extra large posters in small groups.
This encouraged collaboration and teamwork. I was very proud at how well my students handled this task!
“Miss Smith, this is a cutaway painting. We are showing the inside of the volcano. “
(This made my teacher heart so happy because we have been focusing on informational text features! More on that in a later blog post!)
My students are still hard at work on these art projects and are now at the stage where we are labeling them and writing out teaching points so that others can learn about what they are making.
To continue helping my students answer their wonders, we read the book, Rocks: Hard, Soft, Smooth, and Rough. This book has taught us SO much and is always in the hand of a student when they are in the book corner!
You can pick this up from Amazon, here.
I stopped reading after we read the two pages about sedimentary rocks and showed my students a few pictures to help the better understand them. We then created a “craft” to better illustrate that sedimentary rocks are made up of layers. To do this, I bought 7 jars of colored sand from Michaels. (If you ever need art materials, I HIGHLY recommend them! They always help me out with coupons and teacher discounts! This last shopping trip I saved over $35 thanks to the kindness of the checkout lady!)
I gave each student a clear plastic cup and they got to work making layers out of the different colored sand.
This activity really helped them learn the word “layer” as they practiced using it over and over.
They carefully scooped each color on top of the previous one making sure that they could no longer see any of the previous color. They loved checking out their sedimentary rocks throughout the process.
When they got picked up, they could hardly contain all that they had done that day!
We are still knee-deep in our inquiry but I wanted to share part one of what we have been up to! My students are LOVING this unit. Especially because it means frequent trips outside to find, explore, and discover new types of rocks!
If you are interested in any of these activities, lessons, posters, and more, feel free to check out my Rocks and Geode pack available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. You can get it HERE!
Come back soon to read about Part Two!! (Monday we are cracking open geodes!!)
This blog post contains an affiliate link for your convenience.