After just having fire week last week, I thought that it would be a good time to talk about other disasters that can happen too. This time, focusing on natural disasters like tornados, hurricanes & volcanos. And with those air, land & water fits right in. My kids love talking about different disasters.. I don’t know why, they are just mesmerized by them and can ask a zillion questions about them. This unit is also a great way to talk about the idea of geography, maps & globes.
As with every lesson, we of course pair the materials listed with tons of books from the library, but I also have the Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth which I love. To note, you’ll see LHL next to a couple of items without a link. That’s because some of this lesson comes from a Little Hands Learn free unit study. I cannot share the printables here, but you can get them free if you enroll if you are interested.
| M | T | W | Th | F | |
| Religion | Giddeons Battle & Comprehension | Color God Chooses Giddeon | Glue cotton balls on fleece worksheet to create a blanket | Compare wool to cotton | Act out story with kids favorite blanket |
| Language (2) | Air, Land, Water 3 part cards LHL | Sandpaper letters | Tornado Game* | I spy Game w/ review letters* | Letter Volcanos (use review letters) |
| Language (4) | Air, Land, Water 3 part cards LHL | Tornado in a bottle reader | Tornado Game* | Easy reader (Bob book) to practice CVC & sight | Letter Volcanos (use letters to make CVC words) |
| Math (2) | Sort animal figurines by air, land & water | Use dot marker to make 7 dots on the 7 worksheet | Natural Disaster Café* | Work on shapes (early learning bin) | Find #7* |
| Math (4) | Sort animal figurines by air, land & water | 10 frame math (we will not do all the examples, just a few) | Natural Disaster Café* | Tropical storm hundreds chart | Graph national disasters* |
| Art/Sensory | Nature walk to collect air, water & land in jars LHL | Practice transfering skills with water & beans (for land) | After Disaster sensory bin – ‘digging through the rubble’ – black & white beans, duplo home pieces, car pieces, any broken small toys, plastic plants, | Make a tornado in 2 litre bottle | Build a city out of blocks and then jump around to create an earthquake |
| Science Geography History | Start Sunrise/Sunset Activity and do throughout the week Compass Rose Activity | Blow or Not Blow experiment LHL And Talk about how tornados happen (can also get out air cards from Monetssori by mom) | What’s Inside Our Earth – Gemstones & Minerals* | Talk about water disasters and how they happen (floods, hurricanes & tsunamis) | Parts of a volcano and volcano mini book with how earthquakes happen |
Comprehension Questions:
What was Gideon afraid of?
What did the angel tell Gideon?
Did Gideon think he was strong and brave?
I spy Game – Looking around the room say I spy something that starts with the letter ‘mmmm’ and have the child guess items that start with m. Do this for review letters.
Nature walk – Bring 3 small jars and go for a walk to collect air, water & land. You can just have them wave the jar around to collect air. Then you can match each jar to the 3 part cards that they go with
Gemstones & Minerals – I got this to be able to look at the different gemstones and minerals and we will also look up where they come from on a map. This is another good resource to use with this activity.
Tornado Game – I will use letter flashcards and sight word cards for this and some tape the tornados to the back of some so that they don’t know which are which. My 2 girls will be 1 man teams and the 2 year old will have the single letters and a mama helper, while the 4 year old will have the sight words. We will draw a basic house that I will help them with.
Natural Disaster Café – I am going to make a little menu for myself and put numbers next to each one (1-7 for my 2 year old, any number up to 100 for my 4 year old). I will then read them the menu and they can pick something they want to make. But, before they do, they have to do the number activity. For my 2 year old it will be counting or picking the correct number flashcard from a pile, and for my 4 year old, she will have to write the number on the board, or build the number with math beads. Once they do the math activity they can make the item in the play kitchen and deliver it to the customer aka me or sister or dad. The menu will be something like… disaster soup – 2/14 (so my 2 year old would count 2 objects with me and my 4 year old will write or build the number 14). Other menu ideas: Lava lasagna, Tornado Pasta, Earthquake Chicken Tenders etc…
Find #7 – I will put a 7 magnet in a bin with several letter magnets. I will have my daughter search through the bin to find the 7. Repeat until child looses interest.
Graph natural disasters – I will have my daughter make a graph based on these numbers that I found in an online search – average numbers per year (I don’t really care if these are 100% accurate, you can do more research if you do)– tsunamis: 2, hurricanes: 12, volcanos: 60, tornados: 1000. The graph doesn’t have to be completely accurate, but I just want her to see the comparison in quantities.
Other Natural Disaster Preschool Activity Ideas
Monopoly Earthquake – Get to large cloths (or paper) and overlap them a little bit. Cover them lightly with soil, and top with monopoly houses to make a town. Then pull apart the cloths and watch the houses fall in the fault line.
Graham Cracker Quake – Lay 2 halves of graham cracker on a pile of red frosting. Push them back and forth to show what happens – fault line & mountains.