Science Concept Two Parts of Earth Surface Activity for Younger Students

Earth's Surface Has Two Main Parts of Land and Water

With Earth Day approaching in about a month, I prepared a matching activity to be part of a series of indoor and outdoor activities divided between what's on land and what's in water for kindergarteners.

Explaining concepts to youngsters need to be kept simple. For Earth Day I like to concentrate for the ECE level on the 2 colors green and blue--green for land and blue for water. By 1st or 2nd grade, using the word continents and islands instead of land might make a bit more sense than those in kindergarten. Same for differentiating between ocean water or river or pond...for little ones, water is water.

So an easy way to transition youngsters on this new way to distinguish blue from green to designate water from land, prepare a simple page and matching cut-outs like the ones shown in the photo:

The number four was picked as enough spots to place on a single sheet of blue cardstock. A heart was stenciled on and outlined in marker with 'LOVE' written in it and then 'We' written to the left side with 'Earth' on the right. Four different patterned papers were used to trace and cut out 2 circles from each design. One set were glued on the traced spots and the other set were mounted to white cardstock circles for extra durability.

The sheet was placed in a plastic sheet protector. As you work with a small group of children at a table or give a mini lesson before placing this in a science center, share with the students that the blue represents large ocean water and the green paper spots are representing islands/land (small amounts of land). They need to find each islands matching island.

Visually and representationally the very basic earth science concept about parts of the Earth's surface can be learned.

Being able to match 1-to-1 is a basic math counting/number skill.

Other idea to expand on the Earth's 2 surface parts of water and land:
a. sensory bin or bowl containing blue and green shredded paper or colored rice can be the massive amount with small items like blue and green marbles can be what children need to find; add math skill of sorting/categorizing by having blue and green small bowls or cups for the kids to place the miniature lakes (blue) and islands (green) into.

Extend to creatures that live in water and those that live on land:
b. outdoors/gross motor: have a blue tarp laid on the ground for the water and a green military tarp or shower curtain laid out for land. Take items from the classroom or maybe some prepared magazine pics or internet printed images glued to cardstock/file folder cut-outs. Students stand around the outside edges and take turns coming to get a picture/item to toss onto the correct colored tarp. Two shared early science and math skills are making observations and sorting/classifying. And science concepts are now extending past the Earth's two surface areas to include recognizing animals that live predominantly in each area.
Example: a stuffed animal dolphin gets tossed onto the blue tarp
Example: a stuffed animal bunny gets tossed onto the green tarp

If your facility has an indoor gym or large open classroom floor space, this could be done inside.

Enjoy helping children of all ages learn more about our Earth.