Science: A Soil Study-Layers of Soil

I love "digging" into content area studies. 

My science block is only 30 minutes and I often need to reserve that time for experimenting and hands on learning. Many times my solution is to slide science reading into my language arts block as a way to get it all in and give my students more exposure to informational reading. We can still work on using reading skills and strategies but with text that aligns to our science or social studies content. 

At this point we were working on a unit on soil so after we examined soil and figured out what it was, we went into our science book to do some nonfiction reading on the topic. Using our textbook allows students to have some experience with using tables of content, glossaries and indexes. It also exposes them to nonfiction text features like the headings, illustrations and labels. We found this great diagram of the layers of soil and we decided to recreate it.

We made a flipbook that includes the major soil layers or horizons.  I had a parent volunteer cut and staple the books together and I  typed up the descriptions of each one.  (See below)

I like to have students fill out the Cloze Notes on topics we study.  Third graders are not quite ready to write all the notes independently but are certainly capable of filling in key words on a note sheet. This also helps them work on using context clues.  For this set of notes I gave them the first letter of the missing words.  We filled it out and discussed it together.

Students then proved that they understood what would be found in each layer of soil by illustrating.

Here is an example of a finished product.  Now it is ready to go home to be studied.  Our "make and take" for this unit is a soil bag (big ziplock).  It will include this flip book, vocabulary cards and some note sheets and diagrams. 

Here is the Soil Horizon printable if you would like your students to create a flip book similar to this one. Check back...we also got in another investigation of the comparison of soil types this week.  Will post that one next!

Head here to get these materials to try in your classroom:

Soil Study Unit

Here is a slide show that includes all the important information!

Soil Slide Show

Here is a FREE resource that I am offering.

Soil poems that are perfect for integration of science into your language arts block. 

Free Soil Poetry Resource

I love making science learning hands on.  Kids need more time exploring natural objects like soil, sand, soil, etc.
Check out how I foster curiosity in my classroom while still getting everything else in!



Keep Them Curious! Observation Station Materials and Reading Passages

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