Saturday 6 September 2014

Hands on Geography Activities


Here I am compiling all my Geography activity ideas I think of as I teach my four girls about the world they live in - I will be adding more as I go along.  We have enjoyed these projects so I thought I would share them here and will share any successful projects I discover or make up on the way, will also feature here in the future...

EASY PROJECTS






Play dough maps - My four year old hated the idea of drawing out a map, but when I go the play dough out things changed.








Tectonic Plates - This activity idea came up when I was doing a project about volcanoes for my under 12's science group.  It is simple and imperfect in ways but it gives children a visual idea of we mean when we talk about tectonic plates and how they move.




Salt Dough Fossils - this is a simple activity which can bring up a lot of conversation as to how fossils are formed.
How do clouds form? - this is a simple and cheap experiment that teaches children how clouds work.

What is soil made of? - This experiment shows you how to separate the different parts of soil and explains what those parts are and why each part is important.


NOT SO EASY PROJECTS


How wind is made - an experiment which demonstrates how winds on earth are created.









Here are 11 science experiments all about volcanoes; 11 ways of learning about geography through science in a hands on way.  Most of these are simple and easy projects that can be done with children of any age, but there are a few that are more challenging.

Geotechnical Engineering project - I thought about how I could do this one for a while before I came up with this.  There is quite a bit of maths hence it being in the NOT SO EASY section.





Photo: My 1st time making homemade fudge worked out really well!
Volcanic rocks - making and eating sweets to learn about rock formation

2 comments:

  1. My five year old will enjoy play dough maps. Thank you for all these ideas-pinning for reference. We will enjoy these. I also hope to model various geographical features in clay or play dough.

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    1. Cool! modelling is a great way of making geography more fun! :)

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