Free Rocks and Minerals Packet

Are you studying Rocks and Minerals?! Be sure to check out this post again which covers  how rocks have been used,  famous rock landmarks,  how we use minerals in our environment, mining, recycling and the months and birthstones. Be sure to check out the links to our hands-on activities about the three types of rocks: sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic which you’ll find below.

This week, I’m out of commission. I’m having some pretty major ear surgery in a couple of days and I plan to lock the bedroom door and let my amazing and wonderful in-laws watch the kids while I recover. In the meantime, I wanted to leave you with something to look through.  I picked out some old posts that might be of interest:

Rocks and Minerals Post:

We wrapped our chemistry unit and spent a few weeks on vertebrates and invertebrates.  It was time to tackle a new unit on rocks and minerals. I’m using a science textbook as a spine for my preschooler; the next unit in her books was on rocks, minerals and natural resources. I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted for ED, so I created a new unit on rocks and minerals myself. This time around I especially wanted to cover how rocks and minerals are used.

Rocks-and-Minerals-Unit-Packet

We’ve studied earth science before. I wanted to come at this unit from a different angle so we’d all learn something new.

This unit goes over some basic vocabulary, but since ED doesn’t read yet, I limited what she had to write to tracing. (I made a second set that has fill-in-the-blanks for the other two, starting on p. 14. They’ll quickly go through these sheets as well and will add them to their science notebooks.)

recycling

This packet covers how rocks have been used (for walls, buildings, roads, etc.) and some famous rock landmarks (Uluru, Arches, the Rock of Gibraltar, among others). It covers some basic facts about rocks and explores how we use minerals in our environment. It also goes into mining and recycling as these are two topics we haven’t covered in earth science. Finally, the packet covers the months and birthstones. I also made some Montessori-type cards for ED. I’ll share those in a few days.

Our Rocks and Minerals Packet is free for you to download if you think it’ll be of some use for your child or students. I make these materials for my own kids, but hope it comes in handy for your kids too!

Rocks and Minerals Unit Worksheets

This is 26 pages. Pages 1-13 are for younger kids (preK or K); pages 14-26 are better suited to slightly older kids.

Rocks-and-Minerals-Unit-Packet

Be sure to check out our new 100+ page Rocks and Minerals Unit here or below!

Rocks and Minerals Unit - Worksheets Notebook Pages and More!New Rocks and Minerals Unit!

The material above was made many years ago when my kids were quite little. We have a huge new 100+ page Rocks and Minerals Unit if you are interested!

Rocks and Minerals Packet - worksheets activities and moreNew! (2021) We have a bran new 100+page Rocks and Minerals Packet available. For more details, visit this Rocks and Minerals post or scroll down below.

In our Rocks & Minerals Unit, we went into a lot of detail about the types of minerals, identifying minerals – crystalline structures, the characteristics of minerals (color, streak, luster, hardness), the Mohs Hardness Scale,  how rocks are formed, weathering, erosion, the lithification process, different types of igneous, sedimentary & metamorphic rocks and more.  This packet includes notebook pages, worksheets, a lapbook, lab activities, vocabulary cards, booklets and more!

Rocks and Minerals Unit with Worksheets Notebook Pages Lapbook Booklet and moreRocks and Minerals Booklet - Elementary

$7.99 New! Rocks and Minerals Unit 100+ pages

More details can be found here: Rocks and Minerals Packet or at the Earth Science BUNDLE page.

Don’t forget to check your PayPal email account for your download link! Our packets are PDF digital downloads. If you have any questions or problems feel free to email me or check out the FAQ.

This unit is included in our Earth Science BUNDLE. More details about the Earth Science Bundle options here.

Three Types of Rocks - igneous sedimentary metamorphic rock Worksheets - notebook pagesLearn terms like weathering, erosion, compacting, cementing, luster, vitreous, clast and more!

Rocks and Minerals Matching Cards

We started the unit off reading a few easy-reader type books about rocks for ED. Some books that might work for your preschooler (these are affiliate links):

Update: This series by Ellen Lawrence is available at our local library now and are definitely worth a mention (these are affiliate links):

Then we filled out the first few pages of the packet. Below the kids are filling out the page on what rocks are used for (roads, walls, statues, buildings, etc.):

IMG_1789Uses-for-Rocks

Meanwhile, DD and LD are also reading through the new Geology student textbook from Real Science 4 Kids. (affiliate link) It was just published in December.

Geology-Curriculum-Middle-School

We read the first chapter about what geologists do and then we spent time outside doing our own geological exploration! (Any excuse to spend time outdoors, right?!)

Rock-Collecting

The kids came in with a bagful of rocks. They dried them off and spent quite a bit of time just observing their samples. We’ll use their rocks in another few days after we talk in more depth about the different types of rocks. Above DD was showing me how the rock she collected flaked into small bits.

We continued on with a discussion of the three types of rocks and some (yummy) activities, but I’ll save those activities and that download for another day.

For this unit, we used two books in particular for our hands-on activities:

We really loved Explore Rocks and Minerals!: 25 Great Projects, Activities, Experiements (affiliate link)

Explore-Rocks-and-Minerals

Geology Rocks!: 50 Hands-On Activities to Explore the Earth (affiliate link) was really great for the age of my kids. It had a lot of really fun ideas.  We got it first from the library, but then I wound up purchasing it to have on hand!

Geology-RocksWe got a number of other books as guidebooks, but the one I highly recommend is Smithsonian Handbooks: Rocks & Minerals (affiliate link)  because of all the beautiful photos.

Rocks-and-MineralsAnd one last recommendation if you have younger kids (preschool age), my kids really liked Let’s Go Rock Collecting (Let’S-Read-And-Find-Out Science. Stage 2) (affiliate link)

Here are a few other books we used (when ED was in 3rd grade) (affiliate links):

Books about rocks for kids - types of rocks sedimentary igneous metamorphic

Baking and Crushing is recommended for grades 1-3. That goes right along with our “baked metamorphic rock activities here with crayons and here with cake and core sampling!

Baking-CrushingWe also got a rock kit with different samples of sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks. We got the small version (with 15 rocks): American Educational Introductory Rock Collection (affiliate link).

Rocks-KitThe large kit with 75 rocks and minerals looked really great: Introductory Earth Science Classroom Rocks and Minerals Collection (affiliate link). For a rocks and minerals unit for older kids, I would probably got with this because it has at least 25 minerals, 6 or 7 ores, and samples of the sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks.

Large-Rocks-and-Minerals-Kit

There is also a set of posters about Rocks and Minerals (affiliate link) that would work well for a classroom unit on rocks and minerals.  (16 inches x 22 inches) These have really good reviews.

rocks and minerals poster

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase. 

I shared some of our hands-on activities in these related posts:


New Rocks and Minerals Unit!

We studied Rocks and Minerals again this semester (2021).  Our new Rocks and Minerals Packet is available.  It over 100+ pages!

In our Rocks & Minerals Unit, we went into a lot of detail about the types of minerals, identifying minerals – crystalline structures, the characteristics of minerals (color, streak, luster, hardness), the Mohs Hardness Scale,  how rocks are formed, weathering, erosion, the lithification process, different types of igneous, sedimentary & metamorphic rocks and more.  This packet includes notebook pages, worksheets, a lapbook, lab activities, vocabulary cards, booklets and more!

$7.99 New! Rocks and Minerals Unit 100+ pages

Don’t forget to check your PayPal email account for your download link! If you have any questions or problems feel free to email me or check out the FAQ.

The Rocks & Minerals Unit is also included in a couple of the Earth Science BUNDLE Options. More details about the Earth Science Bundles  here.

Rocks and Minerals Packet - worksheets activities and moreRocks and Minerals Unit with Worksheets Notebook Pages Lapbook Booklet and moreMinerals Worksheets Notebook Pages and ActivitiesRocks and Minerals Unit - Worksheets and Notebook Pages on Igneous Sedimentary and Metamorphic Rocks

See more details at our Earth Science Page. The new Rocks and Minerals Packet is included in our Earth Science BUNDLE of 5.

Earth Science Bundle of 5

The Rocks and Minerals Unit is also available in the Earth Science & Physical Science Bundle of 10. See details here:

Earth Science and Physical Science BUNDLE of 10

Disclosure:  Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.


Our 150+ Page Earth Science Packet:

Be sure to check out our 150+ page Earth Science Unit Packet.  It includes worksheets about the solar system, the layers of the Earth, plate tectonics, the ring of fire, earthquake activity and volcanoes. I also included more than a dozen hands-on activities we did with this unit including activities about plate tectonics, using a compass, earthquakes, volcanoes, instructions on how to make a shake table and more!
Find out more by visiting this post: Earth Science Packet

We did a ton of hands-on activities as we studied

  • the solar system
  • layers of the Earth, Earth’s axis
  • compass directions, compass rose, how to use a compass
  • Earth’s geologic timeline
  • equator, latitude, longitude  — Using a globe to determine latitude and longitude
  • Pangaea and continental drift
  • understanding convection currents
  • tectonic plates
  • 4 types of mountains
  • 3 types of faults
  • earthquakes and faults
  • volcanoes – volcanic terms, types of volcanoes
  • earthquakes and building construction, earthquake shake table

To purchase the Earth Science Packet, visit our Store!

Earth-Science-Packet 150 page - worksheets hands-on activities and moreLayers of the Earth - Interactive Notebook ActivityEarth Science Activities Hands-On-Activities-EarthScienceUnitVolcano-Lapbook-Interactive-Notebook-PiecesTypes of Volcanoes Worksheets and Interactive Notebook Pages

You might also want to check out our Layers of the Atmosphere Packet 

Layers of the Atmosphere Packet - Worksheets Hands-On Activities Notebook Pages Layers of the Atmosphere Printable Activity Earth Systems - Atmosphere Geosphere Hydrosphere Notebook Activity - Earth System Lapbook Pieces Earth's Atmosphere Packet 50+ pagesYou will find this packet and more in our Store!

The Earth Science Packet can bundled with our Layers of the Atmosphere Packet

Earth Science BUNDLE

You might also be interested in these related posts: 


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Biology Unit: Biomes, Food Web, Biological Interactions:  This year we are talking about the Biosphere in quite some depth. We will be covering habitats, ecosystems, biomes, the climate zones, food chains, food webs, energy pyramid and more! Then after that we are doing a big Ocean Unit (tides, currents, ocean zones, ocean habitats and more).

Biomes-Worksheets

Biology-Unit-Biosphere-Biomes-Habitats-Packet

You might also be interested in some of our other packets:

DigestiveSystemPacket-New-and-Updated

Simple Machines Packet

DinosaurPacket-Lapbook-MontessoriCards-More

Digestive System Unit – This packet includes hands on activities about digestion, the length of the digestive tract and more

DigestiveSystemPacket-New-and-Updated

Human Body System Worksheets

Human-Body-Systems-Worksheets-Bundle

Skeleton System Worksheets 

HumanSkeleton-Worksheets-Lapbook

A Study of Cells Worksheet Packet: Cell Theory, Eurkaryotic vs. Prokaryotic Cells, Cell Organelles, Animal vs. Plant Cells and More

Cell-Worksheet-Packet

Ocean Unit

After our Biology/Biosphere Unit, we went on to study the hydrosphere — ie. the ocean. Find out more about our ocean unit here:

Ocean-Unit-Packet-Marine-Habitats-Ocean-Currents-Tides-Bioluminescence

You might also be interested in these general science posts:

ScienceHomeschoolChecklist

Science-Units-and-PacketsSee you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page! Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter. You might also want to check out some of our resources pages above (such as our Science, Language Arts, or History Units Resource Pages) which have links to dozens of posts.  You might want to join our free Homeschool Den Chat Facebook group.  Don’t forget to check out Our Store as well. :) Homeschool Den StoreAgain, if you are interested in joining our Homeschool Den Newsletter, feel free to subscribe here.

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3 Responses

  1. michelle says:

    I just found your site and I’m in love with you packets and all the resources you have compounded. I’m just started to piece together my own curriculum for my preschooler and your site has made it so much simpler. Thank you.

    • homeschooldenadmin says:

      Thanks so much, Michelle! I’m glad you’ve found the website useful… when I get comments like yours it definitely makes it worth while!! ~Liesl

  1. April 28, 2014

    […] Free Rocks and Mineral Packet […]

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