Start a Rock Collection 

 
Objective:  
- Students understand properties of rocks. 
 
 
Engage:  
- Who has a parent who has a rock collection or rocks in their 
landscape at home? 
- Have you ever went exploring in the rock collection and looked 
at all of the different rocks you see?  
- Tie back to my personal life.  
- Weeds- rocks 
Explore:  
- Today, we are going to explore the PES rock collection in front of 
school.  
- We are going to collect some schoolyard rocks, but are focus of 
collecting rocks is to think about what are the properties of 
schoolyard rocks? 
- Who can remind me what properties are?  
- Before we go outside, I want to review our rock rules 
- What do you think some rules should be as we collect 
rocks? 
- You will have two tools to help you as you collect rocks 
- Magnifying glass and a cup to put your rock in  
- If the rock doesn’t fit in your cup, you can not collect it.  
- You must stay in our area which is in front of the school. 
- You will have ten minutes to look for rocks. When you hear 
Miss Bildstein say, rocks rock that means it is time to line up!  
- Line up to go outside  
- Circulate groups finding rocks.  
- After 10 ish minutes head back inside.  
- Sit at your tables and observe your rocks.  
- Choose two or three rocks you want to keep to add to the 
classroom collection. 
 
Entering the classrom/outside if nice on clipboard: 
- Fill out worksheet! 
- Drawing and writing observations of four rocks.  
 - Discuss what properties these rocks have.  
- What properties do the schoolyard rocks have?  
- Are these the same or different then the river rocks? 
- What could impact the difference between these rocks? 
- Weathering 
- River rocks have more water on them  
- Schoolyard rocks have sun beating on them 
(change colors)  
- Try and find a rock that has darker bottom 
then the top 
Boys and Girls! Tonight, I want you to look at your rocks at home and bring 
rocks in for us to share. 
CLEAN UP! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Schoolyard Rocks  
Day 2 
 
 
Engage:  
- Have a few students share the rocks they found from home.  
- At carpet 
- What do you notice about these rocks that are different than the 
rocks we found at school? 
- Are they the same or different? 
 
Explore:  
- Today, we are going to explore and see if washing these rocks 
change their properties. 
- We are going to think about what properties change. 
- What does property mean again? 
- Head back to seats 
- While I get the water ready, your job is to get your rocks ready.  
- DO NOT touch your water until I tell you to. 
 - Okay! Boys and Girls, I want you to pick one rock to drop into the 
water and observe 
- Take that rock out.   
- Grab a new rock 
- Drop in and observe 
- Take out 
- Grab new 
- Observe 
- What are you noticing? Are the rocks staying the same or showing 
different properties?  
- Let’s dry our rocks off and we are going to display our rocks. 
- Every table has a paper plate, I want you to put your rocks 
onto your paper plate.  
- Put your rocks into the middle of your table.  
- Don’t touch them or they will be mine. 
Now we are going to read Exploring Rocks in our book.  
 
Let’s open to the Table of Contents.  
What do you notice?  
 
Turn to page three: Exploring Rocks 
- Before we begin to read, I want you to think about what you have 
already learned about rocks.  
- As we read, I want you to listen and see if your ideas are written in 
this article.  
- Read with partners 
- Finished stand up 
- Discuss Reading 
- Describe the rock you were thinking about  
- What did the story tell you about rocks that you already knew? 
- What did the story tell you about rocks that was new to you?  
- Where do we find rocks?  
- What are some properties of rocks? 
- Size, shape, texture, color, pattern. 
Wrap Up:  
- We have learned a lot about rocks so far and their properties?  
- On this rock, I would like you to write something you have 
learned about rocks so far from this unit and something you 
wish to know.  
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