The Great Rock Sort

You don't have to travel far to learn about rocks, just step outside, pick up a stone, and begin investigating. After taking a class walk around the school grounds collecting rocks, young scientists practice their skills of observation...

Get your classroom rocking with this four-lesson earth science unit. Through a series of shared reading activities and hands-on investigations, young geologists learn about the three types of rocks and the unique properties of each.

Investigate the properties of rocks and minerals through a rockin' hands-on activity. Learners test rocks for various properties and, using a guide, attempt to identify different samples. They use various properties including hardness,...

Is a rock living? How about lima beans? You'll find everything you need for an interactive sorting activity exploring living and non-living things. 

Describe and sort rocks by their physical properties.

Firts graders distinguish between sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks. They group the rocks into the appropriate group. This is one of the best-organized plans I've seen! Learners watch a PowerPoint presentation which is embedded...

Junior geologists sort rocks and soil. They separate a sample of river gravel by size, shape, color, and other characteristics. To include Common Core standards, you could have little ones graph the number of particles in each sample.

Second graders will sort rocks according to hardness, texture, layering, and particle size.

Students collect and sort rocks based on visible characteristics.  In this statistics lesson, students determine adequate sample size and categorize rocks based on characteristics.  The book Everybody Needs a Rock is read to discuss the...