Friday, February 8, 2008

Rocks and Minerals and more, oh my!

We have spent the last week or so learning about Geology. Here are some books and acitvites we enjoyed:

The Earth
The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth
Planet Earth Inside Out
I Fall Down
Continents by Fradin
Our Earth by Rockwell
The Earth by Nicholson
*made edible earths from Geology Crafts fro Kids

Rocks and Minerals
It could Still Be a Rock
Rock Collecting by Gans (also called Let's Go Rock Collecting)
The Super Science of Rocks and Soils
* used kit 7 from Young Scientist Series - minerals
*did gummy bear experiments from Adventures with Rocks and Minerals ( only the igneous rocks turned out...)
*used kit 8 from Young Scientist Series - crystals
*used kit 9 - Fossils

Volcanoes
How Mountains are Made
Mountains by Owen
Mountains and Volcanoes by Taylor
Volcanoes by Clarke
Hill of Fire
Magic School Bus Blows its Top

Earthquakes
Earthquakes by Collier
We Shake in a Quake

We also watched the Magic School Bus videos - "Blows Its Top" and "Rocks and Rolls"

I planned this topic and got the books from the library, but this topic has lead to some interesting independent fun and learning for the girls. The other day they decided to make their own dinosaur digs. We were using plaster of paris with the fossils kit from Young Scientists and they remembered the Dinosaur dig we had bought last year. They came up with the idea of burying toy dinosaurs in some plaster and letting it dry. Today they dug up their dinosaurs and then came up with the idea of making their own Natural History Museum. As I am typing they are setting up displays of fossils, moon rocks and minerals and more. They are planning to give me a tour of it all when they are done. I had hope to get to math today, but I think we may have to skip it in favor of this grand project.





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The dinosaur activity sounds so fun! We did a lot with dinosaurs last year, it was really a riot.

Thanks for all the suggested resources--we're just starting to move in this direction, and it'll be great to have your list for ideas!

Last summer I came across a rock tumbler (complete with a variety of unidentified rocks and polishing powders) for $2 at a garage sale--it'll be fun to use this in conjunction with our geology/earth science goals. Who knows--maybe we'll even be able to identify some of the rocks! :)