- Earth’s Movement Rotation and Revolution Game
Time: 5-10 minutes
Materials: Pencil, printer
Have your students take this sheet around the classroom, find a classmate who can answer one question on the page, and swap papers with this person. They will each answer a question on each other’s sheet and write their name in the box. Have them try to find a different person for each question; whoever gets the most answers filled in by their classmates at the end of the time wins!
- Rocks and Soils Vocabulary Concentration Game
Time: 15-30 minutes
Materials: Printer, scissors, laminate
After you cut the cards out, shuffle them and place them face down in a grid pattern. Player one will start by flipping two cards. If the cards match the definition of a word, then they keep the cards. If the cards don’t match, then the player returns those cards to the original position. Each player takes turns flipping cards, two at a time, until all the matches have been found. The player with the most partners at the end of the game wins!
- Earth’s Surface: Who Am I? Game
Time: 15-20 minutes
Materials: Projector
This PowerPoint has a series of riddles for your children to solve. The answer is always a feature of the earth’s surface, from islands to waterfalls to oceans to canyons and straits. First, your students are given ten “Who Am I” slides, followed by the answers.
Separate your class into groups and have them play this game jeopardy style.
- Order of the Planets Card Game
Time: 15-25 minutes
Materials: Printer, scissors, laminate
Note: To play this game, you have to print out six pages of the game cards. This will give you a full deck.
First, your children will shuffle the deck of cards and deal out seven to each player. Make sure they don’t show anyone else their cards.
The cards are placed face-down in the “draw” pile. Take one card from the draw pile and put it face up. This is going to become the “planet” pile. Going around the circle, each player will try to lay down the next planet in order of their distance from the sun. They’ll lay this card face up in the planet pile. If the player doesn’t have the correct card to put down, they’ll pick a card from the draw pile.
If the cards in the draw pile run out, then shuffle the cards in the planet pile.
The first person to place their cards onto the planet file wins the game.
- Rocks and Soil PowerPoint Quiz
Time: 10-15 minutes
Materials: Projector
This PowerPoint is a great way to help your children learn about rocks and soils. Separate your children into teams and have them compete to get the answers correct.
Questions include the following:
Which rock floats? Pumice, marble, or chalk?
Which is the best rock to tile a roof? Granite, slate, or pumice?
Why is marble used for statues? Because it wears away quickly, because it has attractive colors and textures, or because it doesn’t float
- Heredity and Genetics Concentration Matching Game
Time: 15-25 minutes
Materials: Printer, scissors, laminate
Note: You’ll need to laminate these cards to use them more than once.
Shuffle the cards and place them face down in a grid pattern. The first player will begin by flipping two cards. If the cards contain a matching word and definition, they remove the two cards and keep them. If the cards don’t match, flip them back to their original position. Each player continues flipping cards, two at a time, until all matches have been found. The player with the most partners at the end of the game wins!
- Ecology Concentration Game
Time: 15-25 minutes
Materials: Printer, scissors, laminate
This game is the same setup as the previous game. Your students will take turns trying to match the word cards to their definition cards by drawing them from a grid pattern. Once each card has been removed, have your children count them. Whoever has the most cards wins!
- Mutualism Match up
Time: 10-15 minutes (20 – 25 minutes if you include coloring)
Materials: Printer, coloring material, scissors, a separate sheet of paper, glue
Have your students color in the pictures on this sheet and then cut them out. Each organism on these cards lives symbiotically with another organism on another card. Can your students match them up? An answer key is included, making grading this assignment quick and easy.
- African Animals Mindfulness Coloring Sheets
Time: —
Materials: Coloring materials
These hand-drawn coloring sheets are a great way to give your children a break from the lesson. You’ll find seven different coloring sheets that include animals found in the African wild. From zebras to rhinos to lions, your children will love coloring in the details of these coloring sheets.
- Pin the Muscles on the Body: Musculoskeletal System Activity
Time: 30-45 minutes
Materials: Scissors, laminate, glue, thumbtacks or tape, 2-3 extra-large sheets of construction paper
Note: This activity will take a bit of prep, but it is an excellent way for your children to have fun and remember where the body muscles are.
Print out these full-sized bones and muscles to play “pin the muscles on the body”!
Print out the bones, cut them out, and glue them on the construction paper, connecting more pieces as needed.
Cut the muscles out and distribute them to your students. Make sure you have your thumbtacks or tape ready.
With the skeleton hung up in the front of the class, have your students take turns placing their muscles where they think it goes on the structure.
- States of Matter Crossword Puzzle
Time: 15 minutes
Materials: Printer and writing utensil OR digital tablet
This crossword puzzle is great because it can be used digitally and on paper! Your students will use the 12 vocab words in the box depending on the statement or question. Examples include:
When a liquid is heated, gas bubbles rise in the fluid to escape into the air:
State of matter in which particles are arranged close together but can slide over one another:
A solid begins to melt when the particles start to ____ faster.
How many states of matter are there?
- Amazing Matter: States of Matter Maze Activity
Time: 15- 20 minutes
Materials: Printer, coloring materials that are red, green, and yellow.
With this activity, your children will use colors to fill in each of the squares and then draw a line guiding the mouse through the solid path.
They will color the squares depending on the type of matter referenced.
Liquids = red
Gases = green
Solids = yellow
- Fortune Teller: Volume and Pitch
Time: 20-30 minutes
Materials: Printer, scissors
Follow the instruction to create your fortune-teller! This activity will help children determine the volume and pitch of popular instruments. This is a great game that children can continue to use during class. You can even have them bring it home after class.
- Sound Vocabulary Concentration Game
Time: 20 minutes
Materials: Printer, laminator
After laminating and cutting, shuffle the cards. Place them face down in a grid pattern and have your children take turns picking two at a time and trying to match the word to its definition.
- States of Matter: I Have, Who Has Game
Time: 10-30 minutes
Materials: Printer, laminator, scissors
With this activity, your students will each be given a card. They then have to find their classmate who has the matching card.
There are a few ways you can have your children complete this activity.
- Distribute the cards to your students and have them stand up at their desks. They will take turns reading their card out loud. If a student hears a card read that matches their own, they raise their hand and read theirs aloud. If the cards do match, they both sit down.
- Distribute the cards to your students, and give them five minutes to find their partner. Once everybody has a partner, have them read their cards out loud. If they make any mistakes, help them find their partner.
- Distribute the cards to your students and have them read their cards out loud. Once they’ve all read their cards, go back to the beginning and have the class pair each student with their card’s matching partner.
