Layers of the Earth

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging lately I'm too busy I can't even find time to eat! Doing a degree and working with primary children is so difficult. If you've emailed me and I haven't replied plse forgive me, I'll try to do so soon. Here is something we recently did in my class.

Last week I made this earth model. I first saw this presentation done when I was living in Egypt and attended a science session at a Montessori centre run by an 80 year old American woman who trained many many years ago. I wanted to make it perfectly, so I matched the layers inside to the cards I downloaded from Cultivating Dhrama, I then covered the coloured ball in a layer of blue. I cut out continents and stuck them on [except for Antarctica which one child pointed out]. The children were so excited as I walked around the classroom carrying 'THE WORLD' in my hands. Then to their amazement I cut it! Yes I cut my work of art :( and we talked about the different layers inside the earth and how they were formed. This was a follow up lesson to the first great lesson.


The layers of the Earth shown inside the model. The children loved it and so did I.
This is how I have the activity set up on a tray. Not perfect I know but it was what I could find in a rush.
Little-N and his friend working with the earth model, globe and layers of the earth cards. Some of the children went on to make project books about the earth. Another child drew an amazing picture using pastels.

I noticed that Monressori en el hogar recently did a similar activity, it's always lovely to see what other bloggers do.