Characteristics of Rocks and Minerals

I love the title we gave this blog post: Characteristics of Rocks and Minerals.

We had so much fun doing Unit B in our absolutely awesome Nancy Larson Science 2 curriculum.

We have been using Nancy Larson Publishers for our Science studies for over a year now and we still love it!

It offers such a great mix of hands-on, paper-and-pencil, easy planning and book reading to learn Science in the best way possible.

Characteristics of Rocks and Minerals

In this post, we will show you how we used lessons on rocks and minerals for kids.

This particular Geology unit had 8 lessons, including a review lesson and a final assessment.

We got a really good overview of rock and mineral size (sand, pebble cobble and boulder), physical properties, rock composition, mineral harness, Mohs’ harness scale, and so much more.

Here are two sample pages from my teacher’s manual.

I wanted to show you a little bit of what a lesson paper-and-pencil activity looks like.

The actual lesson is set up like a dialogue.

The teacher’s notes are highlighted, so they make it easy for me to know what to say and where the conversation is going in the lesson.

Students have their own reading booklets and activity pages for each lesson and unit.

Rocks and Minerals for Kids

We love reading books about all the topics we study.

At the end of this post, I will share with you part of our reading list for this unit, which I think you will find fascinating and quite helpful.

Be sure and check it out!

Facts about Rocks and Minerals

Learning about rocks and minerals was so much fun for us.

We have a rock collection (Mohs’ scale), a magnifying glass and a flashlight.

We loved studying each rock and mineral and learning the difference between rocks and minerals.

This unit was chock-full of rocks and minerals facts.

Thankfully, we had great worksheets and charts to make sense of them all.

In our case, my kids learn/retain things better when they do something about it with their hands, even if it is writing stuff down.

I highly recommend this amazing Science curriculum!

Teaching Science has never been easier and more fun!

Finally, below is a picture of everything that comes in the Nancy Larson Science 2 set.

It takes us about 9 months to go through the entire curriculum.

It is very thorough, very complete and very fun.

Take a look here to get more information and sample lessons.

Thank you for visiting our Fun Physics Demonstrations for Kids post!

Thank you for reading our Characteristics of Rocks and Minerals post!

Here are our posts from Science 1. You will find them fascinating and super fun!

We Love our New Science Curriculum!

The Life Stages of Human Beings Unit

Observing Parts of Trees & Plants {Lessons, Hands-on Activities & Books}

Exploring Sunlight, Water and Soil: And Earth Science Unit

Investigating Animals & Their Habitats

Anatomy of the Human Body Unit

Examining the Characteristics and Life Cycles of Insects (and Spiders)

Rocks and Minerals Reading List

Everybody Needs a Rock (An Aladdin Book)If You Find a RockLooking at Rocks (My First Field Guides)Experiments with Rocks and Minerals (True Books)

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