Earth Science: Layers of the Earth Hands-On Activity

Last week, I mentioned that we learned a bit about the Solar System in general.  This week we’ve been looking more closely at Earth’s long history.  We’ve been going over the four major eons and looking more closely at what happened in each (Hadean Eon, Archean Eon, Proterozoic Eon, Phanerozoic Eon). At first 4.6-4 billion years ago, the Earth would have been molten. Then as the Earth cooled it went from liquid to solid. Heavier molten iron sank into the core, while lighter rock rose to the surface, cooled and became the crust.  This was the activity we did as we learned about the layers of the Earth.

To get ready for this activity, I made several batches of homemade play dough.

In a pan, place the following ingredients. Cook on the stove top until the dough sticks together in one big clump.

• 1 cup flour
• 1/3 cup salt
• 1 Tablespoon cream of Tartar
• 1 Tablespoon oil
• 1 cup water
• 5 drops of vegetable glycerine (optional)
• dye — We made globs of dough in different colors for the different layers of the Earth. Be sure to add the dye before you start heating it on the stove.

Once it was assembled the kids took a knife and cut it apart.  It’s definitely a visual way to see the layers of the Earth!

Be sure to check out some of the other activities we have in our 100+ page Earth Science unit!

This is such a great activity for any age! We first did this about four years ago, but the kids enjoyed it as much at this age as they did when they were 2, 4 and 6!

There is another option for taking notes and discussing the Layers of the Earth — an interactive notebook activity that has recently been added to the packet:

Be sure to find out more about our 150+ page Earth Science Unit here:

Earth Science Packet

Layers of the Atmosphere Packet 

You will find this packet and more in our Store!

Well, that’s about it for now.  See you next time here or at our Homeschool Den Facebook page!

You might also be interested in these related posts: 

• Learning about the Solar System – Including the hands-on kit the kids loved assembling and painting.
• Earth Science: Timeline of Earth Activity – A Montessori activity that is meant to impress kids with the enormity of time on Earth.
• Earth Science: Layers of the Earth hands-on Activity
• Earth’s Geologic Timeline – How scientists divide Earth’s history into eons and eras
• Learning about Latitude and Longitude, Using a Compass
• Earth Science: Plate Movement Hands-On Activities
• Earth Science: Layers of the Atmosphere
• Earth Science Packet: Layers of the Atmosphere
• Earth Science: Layers of the Earth Hands-On Activity
• Earth Science: Plate Movements, Pangea
• Plate Movement and Earthquakes
• Earth Science: Plate Movements and Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Mountain Making
• Earth Science: How Fold Mountains are Formed
• Topographic Maps
• World Biomes Pin Map
• Preschool Geography and More Preschool Geography Activities

See 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. ~Liesl

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Happy Homeschooling!

~Liesl