Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Rock Cycle Lesson Plan

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Rock Cycle, and supports the standard of developing a model to describe the cycling of Earth’s materials. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Display rocks, or an image of rocks, like this:

Ask students:

  • What do you notice about these rocks?
  • How do you think they may have formed? 

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign Rock Cycle Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: EXTEND and DEEPEN

Students express what they learned about the rock cycle while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Produce a video diary from the perspective of an igneous rock as it moves through the rock cycle.  
  • Make-a-Map: Create a concept map identifying the processes that form igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. 
  • Creative Coding: Code a museum exhibit about igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks, and how they form. 

More to Explore 

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of Earth’s systems with these topics: Types of Rocks, Mineral Identification, Crystals.

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