This erosion writing worksheet has 2nd grade students read a short fact box, answer four questions, and explain how plants slow erosion. An answer key is included for easy checking.
This Forests Life Science Reading Comprehension Worksheet gives 2nd graders a short non-fiction passage about pine, leafy, and rain forests, plus questions and an answer key. Great no-prep practice for main idea and key details.
Explore swamps, bogs, and marshes with this wetlands life science reading comprehension worksheet. Second graders read a short nonfiction passage and answer six questions, and an answer key is included, so learning about habitats stays easy and fun.
Learn fifteen landforms with these landforms flash cards for kindergarten to 4th grade: painted picture fronts, words and meanings inside, a practice page and an answer key included.
This Lakes and Seas Life Science Reading Comprehension Worksheet gives 2nd Grade students an original passage about fresh water and salt water habitats, with bubble, fill-in, and writing questions. Answer key included.
This Grasslands Life Science Reading Comprehension Worksheet gives 2nd Grade readers a nonfiction passage about savannas and prairies, seven text-based questions, and an answer key included for fast checking.
Mountains, valleys and everything in between
Second graders learn that the land around us comes in many shapes. They name and describe landforms like mountains, hills, valleys, plains, plateaus, islands and canyons, and bodies of water like lakes, rivers and oceans. They read simple maps to find them, and they discover that wind and water slowly change the land over time through erosion. A canyon, for example, is a river's work over a very, very long time. That idea, that land can move and change, is the big wow of the unit!
Landforms are easiest to learn when kids can see, touch and build them. These moves make the vocabulary real.
Show a landform flash card and have kids make the shape with their hands or arms: a pointy mountain, a flat plateau, a deep valley. Then they say the word and one fact. Pictures plus body motion lock in vocabulary for this age.
Why it works: pairing a picture with each word gives kids two ways to remember it, a well-tested principle of how people learn (Mayer, 2009).
Try it withLandforms Flash CardsFlash CardsOpen it →Build a small hill from sand or soil in a tray, then slowly pour water down one side. Kids watch a little channel form, draw what happened, and write one sentence explaining it. Now erosion is something they saw, not just a word.
Why it works: the U.S. Department of Education's guide for teaching elementary math recommends moving from hands-on objects to drawings to numbers.
Try it withErosion Writing WorksheetWorksheetsOpen it →After reading about lakes and seas, kids close the page and tell a partner two facts they remember. Then they open it back up and check. Remembering before rereading makes facts stick much longer.
Why it works: a big review of study methods ranked quick self-quizzing among the most powerful ways to remember (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013).
Try it withLakes and Seas Life Science Reading Comprehension WorksheetAssessmentsOpen it →Get kids exploring the land with these classroom favorites.
AssessmentsRead about wetlands, then sketch where the land meets the water. What lives in the squishy middle?
Open Wetlands Life Science Reading Comprehension Worksheet →
AssessmentsCompare flat grassland plains with bumpy hills. Kids show "flat" or "bumpy" with their hands for each picture.
Open Grasslands Life Science Reading Comprehension Worksheet →
WorksheetsKids sculpt a mountain, valley and island on a paper plate, then label each landform with a flag.
Open Forests Life Science Reading Comprehension Worksheet →Teacher favorites right now: Erosion Writing Worksheet, Forests Life Science Reading Comprehension Worksheet and Wetlands Life Science Reading Comprehension Worksheet.
Second graders usually learn mountains, hills, valleys, plains, plateaus, islands, peninsulas and canyons, plus bodies of water like rivers, lakes and oceans. They also learn to find these on simple maps.
Erosion is when wind, water or ice slowly moves bits of rock and soil from one place to another. Over a very long time, erosion can carve canyons and wear mountains down.
A mountain is much taller and usually steeper than a hill. Kids can remember that a hill is easy to walk up, and a mountain is a big climb!
Build landforms in a sandbox or with play dough, then add water to see where it flows. Point out real hills, rivers or lakes on walks and car rides to connect the words to the world.
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