Activities for Landforms

Planning children’s activities for landforms is a really fun and creative process. I don’t recall learning about landforms when I was a kid though. I grew up in Florida near the beach, occasionally paddled a canoe down a nearby river, and spent quite a few fall holidays on a cattle ranch I guess some people might call a plain. I thought the hills in north Florida were pretty decent, but now I live in western North Carolina which is basically home to landforms on steroids.

Actually, I’ll reserve that comment for Hawaii … the one state where I felt very, very small. What a mecca for landforms.

BOOKS ABOUT LANDFORMS

I am in love with this picture book by Christy Hale. Each page has a special design that transforms each body of water into a land mass. The illustrations are clever and make the kids want to predict the landforms before I turn the page. It’s a great book to use at the beginning of the unit. (Title: Water, Land)

There are a lot of children’s books about landforms and earth’s changes, but these are a few of my favorites. They have bright, clear photos with supportive text features for kids.

U.S. Landforms: What You Need to Know by Linda Brennan
Landforms & Bodies of Water by Eve Heidi Bine-Stock
Earth’s Landforms and Bodies of Water by Natalie Hyde
How Do Wind and Water Change Earth? by Natalie Hyde
Earthquakes, Eruptions, and Other Events that Change Earth by Natalie Hyde

ACTIVITIES FOR LANDFORMS

How I help children build background knowledge is one of the first things I consider when I’m planning a unit. Reading aloud to kids is a key piece, but I want to make sure they have access to texts they can also read and work from. Making our own copies gives kids a chance to highlight important information and mark up their pages to expand their thinking.

We also like these nonfiction articles. The colors really bring the topics to life! If you load them onto an LMS for student use, you won’t break the printing budget. However, if you want children to work from a paper copy, I recommend printing the articles in black and white. This will save you from having the uncomfortable copier conversation with your school secretary.😂

The articles are loaded with supportive text features like bold key words, fun facts, tables, and diagrams. They’re a great way to integrate informational reading with science content. I’ve also included a written response sheet for each article. The goal of these sheets is to give kids an opportunity to practice informational writing while assessing comprehension.

ENGAGING SCIENCE LABS

My favorite activities for landforms are hands-on investigations where kids start from a point of inquiry and work to discover big ideas. For example: What can we do to slow down the process of erosion caused by water? In this science lab, children explore the behavior of water to understand how erosion occurs, and then brainstorm solutions for slowing down the process.👇

In a similar lab, children learn that wind can also cause the erosion of landforms and discover that windbreaks are one solution to reducing the damage caused by wind. I build background knowledge with a short passage about windbreaks and then we explore how they work by building our own.

One thing I like about this lab is that we use models to represent the real-world objects. For example, the students use pieces of yarn to represent soil and blocks to represent rows of trees and shrubs. That means we can do this lab inside without making a huge mess, while reinforcing the idea that sometimes scientists use models during their investigations.👇

Is it safe to build homes on fault lines? In some places, laws prohibit construction directly on top of faults. In this science lab, children find out why.👇

Each lab comes with a short reading passage to help set a foundation, as well as recording sheets for taking notes, making sketches, and processing outcomes. This is another way I connect reading and writing standards to the science objectives.👇

TIME TIP

If your science block is a little short, consider working through the passages during your reading block instead, especially if you’re working on a nonfiction unit of study anyway.

In fact, you can differentiate the instruction by reading the passages together in guided reading groups. Using this scheduling strategy is a good way to make sure all the children have the necessary background information before starting the labs.

MORE ACTIVITIES FOR LANDFORMS

Games are a fun way to learn and review content. In the LANDFORMS RESOURCE SET, I’ve included a few games like Bitty Bingo and Memory, but you can grab this FREE SCULPT-ARADES GAME for your kids to play.👇

When you’re done using the cards in a landform sculpting game, try using them in a game like Pictionary or Taboo. These popular board games are easy to replicate in the classroom. What I LOVE about Taboo is that the game is completely verbal. This gives you a chance to see how kids use definitions and facts to describe each science term. Not familiar with those games? No worries … I’ve included directions in the PDF.

There are a few different ways kids can make models of landforms. Pinterest is full of erupting volcano ideas … check out the one that uses ketchup for a “more real” effect. I bet that took a hot minute to clean up.😂

Crayola’s Air-Dry clay is a good product for young kids. It’s easy to work with and dries in about 48 hours depending on your climate. It may take a little longer in humid spaces. Once the clay landform models are completely dry, the kids can paint them. This project takes a bit of time, but the process and results are worth it!

THE SWEETEST MODELS

The tastiest way to make landform models is to plan for a daily snack-tivity. If you can score some food donations, your kids can make landforms they can eat!

My favorite idea for this is to have a picture of the snack projected when the kids come in from recess (or back from specials). Using the ingredients, the children look at the snack picture and then create it on their own.

The thinking going on here is the visual deconstruction of something whole and then working through a set of steps to recreate it. You don’t have to use sweet items. I like the consistency of a graham cracker base and frosting as the adhesive, but I’ve also seen landforms made from bread and slices of cheese, so you definitely have options.

For each of these landform snacks, we start with a graham cracker base and a thin layer of frosting. I tint the frosting either blue or green depending on whether we’re making a body of water that day or a land mass. Hershey’s Kisses make great mountains and volcanoes, and Nilla Wafers are simple little islands. Red or orange gel icing makes quick lava and green sprinkles can represent grass.

Because plains are often used by farmers to raise livestock, we added mini yellow marshmallows to symbolize bales of hay. Whatever ingredients you choose to use, I recommend taking photos and inviting your students to make them on their own. It’s a fun fine motor, procedural activity … plus, this way they can leave off anything they don’t like.

Been-There Tip👉 I wouldn’t fall for the tinted-coconut grass idea. Sure, it’s cute. But in my experience, coconut is a total gag food for most kids. I recommend sprinkles for the win.

TEACHING RESOURCE

You can check out a few more ideas here👉 LANDFORMS: SCIENCE RESOURCES FOR 2ND GRADE. It includes the books, articles, and labs included in this post, plus teaching posters, student worksheets, projects, and additional activities for landforms.