Earth’s Resources is a concept taught in first-grade science! This post has some ideas for teaching rocks, soil, and water with your students, including a printable interactive flip book.

Earth’s Resources Vocabulary

Earth’s resources are things we get from the Earth that people need to live. These include water, air, soil, plants, and rocks. Learning these vocabulary words helps students understand how we use Earth’s resources every day and why it’s important to take care of our planet. These vocabulary cards can be printed and used with your science unit!

Earth’s Resources Flip Book

Science has always been one of my favorite subjects to teach. It’s hands-on, fun, and little ones love learning and exploring the world around them. However, every once in a while I find a topic that well, doesn’t exactly get me too excited.

Earth’s resources for first grade students was one of those topics. Apologies to the geologists in my family. There just wasn’t a ton out there that covered the standards I needed to teach in a fun way…so I created this Earth’s resources flip book!

I love using flip books to record information and it’s so helpful having everything in one easy place. This flip book has a section for rocks, soil and water. It’s perfect to use ove the course of a few days.

Rocks

We started our learning with rocks! Each child had a hand lens and we played musical rocks. I turned on the music and the students passed around rocks. When the music stopped they could spend some time observing the rock in their hand. I think we could have played this game all day!

At the end of the game, students used the rock in their hand to fill out the Rock Report section in their flip book. They looked at the rock’s color, texture, size and shape.

Soil

Next up was soil! Prior to the lesson, I gave each student a Ziploc bag to collect a soil sample from their house. They were so excited to share their soil and tell us all about where it came from.

It also made my life easier because I didn’t have to hunt for various soil samples to share with them.

We discussed that soil can be observed by looking at size, texture and color. Students drew three different soil samples in their flip book. We also read this book and I can’t recommend it enough! It was perfect for first graders and told us about some of the gross things in dirt…which of course they absolutely loved.

Water

The last resource we learned about was water. These vocabulary flashcards are included with the resource as well.

They really got us talking about different bodies of water and our experiences with water. We also wrote about the many uses of water!

 You can purchase all of the activities shown in this my product, Earth’s Resources Flip Book.

This flipbook was such a hit that I decided to create another one for our next science unit on Objects in the Sky. Be sure to check out this Objects in the Sky Flip Book too!

More First Grade Teaching Ideas:

What is a Text to Self Connection and 10 Books You’ll Love Teaching With
First Grade Math Journals Made Easy
Teaching Ideas for Objects in the Sky

I hope this post gave you some ideas and activities for teaching your students about earth’s resources including rocks, soil and water.