Introducing the Layers of the Earth to Preschoolers (with Free Printable)

This topic is somewhat advanced for my 4 year old.  But you see last week, he watched an episode of  The Backyardigans about the “Old Gushie” a volcano which is about to erupt.  The Backyardigan friends traveled down into the Earth to stop a boulder from plugging Old Gushie before it can break the Earth into half.

That’s how we ended up learning about the Earth’s layers as he was so curious of where the hot liquid lava from the volcano came from.  Materials I used were the Layers of the Earth Nomenclature Cards which I downloaded from The Helpful Garden, Layers of the Earth fact book which I made and can be downloaded for FREE (see link below) and an illustration of the Earth’s layers (colored papers).

Here’s how my Layers of the Earth fact cards looks like.  Sorry for the blurry image, it’s been so  dark lately and I find it difficult to have a decent macro shot.

Here he is working on the 3-part cards and the fact cards.

If you’d like to have a copy of the fact cards, you can click the picture below to download it for free.

We also made Sun and Earth miniature using a Styrofoam ball. We ended up hanging them in his room when the paint dried up.

I was too tired to prepare a playdough for this lesson so I just relied on the craft papers for the demonstration.  But I promised to do it next time as I know he would love to create the layers using playdoughs.

As seen in the picture he’s labeling each layer.   I always include a writing exercise in every activity we have to improve his handwriting.

And later on he decided to write in “Chinese” characters as what he described it LOL.

Linking to:

Preschool Corner