Geology Belt Loop


With this months theme of Jurassic Pack we worked on the Geology belt loop. There is a great resource to teach kids the rock cycle, the different types of rocks and minerals. http://library.thinkquest.org/J002289/cycle.html. It gives you every thing you need to know to walk through this belt loop.

I made this activity a game and it was meant to be more like final Jeoporday, but ended up more like poker... but the boys really loved it. I gave them all 5 dinosaur tattoos. I would then read to them something about rocks, minerals, rock cycle, etc and let them wager how many tattoos they wanted. If they got the answer right, I matched the tattoos and if they got it wrong, I took the tattoos. Wow, did those boys pay attention! They did great!
Geology Belt Loop Requirements:
  • Define Geology
  • Collect a sample of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks and explain how they are formed.
  • Expain the difference between a rock and a mineral.
I went to the used book store and bought geology picture books since I didn't have access to actual rock samples. And you can find flash cards with sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks as well.

We wrapped up the activity by breaking geodes. That was so awesome! Some of them were solid crystal and others were hollow and had lots of individual crystals, but the boys had a blast! I highly recommend that activity!

I got the tattoos and the geodes from http://www.orientaltrading.com/