Books for Girls (& boys) Who Love Rocks

Some kids pick flowers for their mom, and I do get flowers from time to time. However, more often than not I get pretty rocks from my little girl. I have even set up a dish on my table to keep all of the special rocks she finds for me.

So, channeling her love of rocks and gemstones I went on a search for books that she would love. Below is a list of books that we have read that she loves simply because she loves rocks and gemstones (we get most of our books from the local library, but I linked each book to Amazon in the list).

1. A Rainbow of Rocks by: Kate Depalma – This was one that Millie was drawn to because she also loves rainbows. Each rock mentioned in this book corresponds to a color. It has beautiful pictures and a rhyming description of the rocks.
2. National Geographic Kids Rocks and Minerals by: Katheryn Zoehfield – This was an early reader book that has simple sentences. It also has awesome pictures and Millie wanted to read this one about ten times. Every time I ask her what book she wants to read, she grabs this one.
3. Ricky the Rock Who Couldn’t Roll by: Mr. Jay – Such a cute book about rocks and friendship. When Ricky can’t roll his rock friends are determined to help him out! A related book is Tess the Tin that Wanted to be a Rock, which is also cute!
4. Scribble Stones by: Diane Alber – This is the story of a little stone that wants to be amazing, and life is pretty mundane until he meets the scribbles. This is an often infusion of art and science!
5. If You Find a Rock by: Peggy Christian – With poetic language and amazing photographs this book celebrates all the rocks that we find or see each day. It really makes you look at the small things in life and appreciate them.
6. A Rock is Lively by: Dianna Hutts Aston–  Just look at the cover of this book and you will know that it is beautiful! Amazon describes the book by saying, “A gorgeous and informative introduction to the fascinating world of rocks. From dazzling blue Lapis Lazuli to volcanic Snowflake Obsidian, an incredible variety of rocks are showcased in all their splendor.”
7. Julie the Rockhound by: Gail Langer Karwoski – When a young girl finds a sparkly rock buried in the dirt and discovers that it cleans to a beautiful quartz crystal, she is fascinated and becomes Julie the Rockhound. She starts to explore the world of rocks. Millie loved this from the moment she saw the girl on the front cover!
8. Charlotte and the Rock by: Stephen W. Martin – Charlotte wants a pet, but isn’t expecting the pet rock she receives. Super cute story of the adventures of Charlotte and her rock!
9. Rhoda’s Rock Hunt by: Molly Griffin – Rhoda is on a hike with her aunt and uncle with one thing on her mind, all the awesome rocks. Join Rhoda as she collects all the rocks she can carry while on the hike! Will they all make it home or will her pack get too heavy?
10. I’m Trying to Love Rocks by: Bethany Barton – If your child thinks rocks are boring this book is sure to convince them otherwise! I picked this one out for Millie because of the interesting title and it did not disappoint.

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Rock Cafe Room Transformation

The inspiration for this room transformation came from an old lab/demo that my partner teacher and I did a couple of years ago (it had been done for years – the copies we had looked like they had been made using ms-dos…if you remember what that is…). Basically, in the lab demonstration, we would cook fudge, pancakes and use snickers to model the process of creating each type of rock. The kids always loved it because they got to eat yummy food while learning = win, win!!

This year instead of just doing the same lab, I decided to kick it up a notch. I donned my chef’s hat and transformed my room into the Rock Cafe!

Set-up for this was super easy! I put my desks together and added a tablecloth. I also put flowers in the middle I found some cheap vases from amazon.  I then made some cute cafe signs and printed them 🙂

My favorite part of my set up was my cake display. I borrowed some cake trays from other teachers and put some of my nicer rocks on them. Similar to the cakes sitting on display at the counter of a cafe. I know I’m a Nerd!! Here is a picture:

A few years ago I typed up all the directions and the student sheet for this activity and placed it in my TpT store. It does not have the cafe signs and such – if you are interested let me know in the comments below and I can send them to you!

If you would like to use this in your class, click the link below to be directed to my TpT store:

Thanks so much for reading this post. Don’t forget to check out my other room transformations – linked on the sidebar!

 

 

Jurassic World – Fossil Room Transformation

I have always been one of those people who find fossils and rocks fascinating. When I was younger I really loved Jurassic Park (even though I fast-forwarded or closed my eyes during some scary parts). So, when I was introduced to classroom transformations, I knew that I would transform my room into Jurassic World one day!

When I first started planning this room transformation I looked a lot at Hope King’s Jurassic World room transformation. She had the awesome idea of turning the desks into jeeps, and digging through dinosaur poop. I followed her lead with my transformation.

The Decorations:

• I painted large and small easter eggs a black/brown color. And I made nests using greenery and moss from the dollar tree.
• I purchased a set of vines from Amazon for around $15.00 and used those to drape around my lab tables.
• Using google, I searched for posters and images from the Jurassic World movies. Because the movie was based on a theme park the movie promotion site has free posters. You can find them here.
• I also found some cute posters like “don’t feed the dinosaurs” etc. that I printed out to hang around the room.
• Student desks were turned into jeeps using black tablecloths, aluminum foil, and paper plate headlights. I also created some jeep tags using Etsy as my inspiration.

As students came in, I set the mood by playing the Jurassic World soundtrack. I also had the picture of the gate projected onto my smartboard.

The Tasks:

Students were given a ticket for the jeep ride that told them what jeep to board.

After all the students entered the room we had a brief jeep orientation. I really played up “keep all body parts in the vehicle” and so forth. I also played video clips from both movies showing dinosaurs and really getting them into the vibe for the day.

I then explained that as we journeyed through the park they would have several tasks to complete because they were brought in as fossil experts to help with some issues around the park.

Task One: Fossil Sort

Students were given a set of fossils (we had some fossil sets in our lab already, but you could also use pictures). Students then had to figure out which type of fossil that sample belonged to. The categories were mold, cast, trace, preserved remains, coprolite or petrified.

Task Two: Pterodactyl Poop

Students were told that the Pterodactyls had been eating rocks to aid in their digestion. They needed to figure out what types of rocks they had been eating because it was causing them issues. How do you figure this out? You did in their poop 🙂

I also projected the video of dinosaur poop from the original Jurassic Park movie. I edited the video for language.

 

The set-up was brownie mix for the poop and cards with rock type vocabulary on the cards. Students had to dig through to find all the cards and then figure out the rock vocabulary. This was prior knowledge for my students as we start this unit with rocks and minerals.

 

 

 

 

 

Task Three: Trace Fossils

I found some animal footprint tracing plates on Amazon. I explained to the students that local animals had been getting into the dinosaur enclosure. They needed to create rubbings of the footprints to figure out the animal type.

Task Four: Cast and Molds

For this one students used molds “that scientists made of native fossils on the island” and created their own casts.

At the end of the day…

At the end of the day we all had a blast at Jurassic World and my students were asked to do tasks related to their learning. This brought their lessons about fossils to life and not something out of reach. When I was in school we just read about fossils, and I love bringing real experiences to my students! 🙂

Have you ever done a room transformation? Tell me about it in the comments below!

 

Want to bring Jurassic World to your classroom? Grab my complete resource from Teachers Pay Teachers. It includes all the handouts you need, the ppt that I used to guide the lesson, and student badges, tickets and jeep signs. Simply click the image below:

 

 

A “Rock”-ing Autobiography

Recently there has been a push to add more writing in all content areas. Being from an ELA background I have welcomed this with open arms. I love writing and being able to see the creativity of my students through their writing.

We just finished a unit over the rock cycle, and to close our unit I created an assignment. My students had to pretend they were a piece of sand at the bottom of a river and write about how they became a rock and went through the rock cycle. They had an option to write a story or create a comic strip. I am very impressed with what they came up with. I had some stories about the sediment floating by SpongeBob’s pineapple and others about the rock being crushed in Super-Mario.

Here are a couple of examples that I thought really displayed their understanding of the rock cycle!

Story Choice

Comic Choice

If you think you would like to use this in your classroom, I made a downloadable product on TeachersPayTeachers. Just click the picture below:

 

A ROCKy Field Trip!

In my Earth Science class we have been studying rocks and minerals. On Monday, I took my students on a field trip. We went to a local reservoir to look for samples of rocks and minerals. It was really a great trip. My students got to observe Earth science in the great outdoors.

 

I didn’t realize before we took the trip how big of a step being in the great outdoors was until we reached the reservoir.  My students are definitely city kids. They have always been in the city, and are not that in touch with nature. What brought me to this realization was when one of my students started running from a butterfly. Wow! Another blatant moment of reality happened when a student said, “Mrs. Caldwell – don’t move there is a bug behind you!” I quickly turned around to find a small grasshopper.

Kids running away from grasshoppers and butterflies was a bit crazy for me – a girl originally from rural Georgia. However, after we talked about what a dangerous bug or animal was we had a successful trip. Some of the students even had the opportunity to hold their first frog or caterpillar. Even though we were there to collect rock samples it was amazing to see the kids interact with the world around them.

 

Here are some resources to use when teaching Rocks and Minerals:

• Rocks and Minerals Lap-book and/or Foldables
• All About Fossils – PPT, Notes and Lab
• Minerals Free Graphic Organizer
• Rocks and Minerals Identification Unit