Teach Your Kids Geography with a Simple Land Air Water Activity

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Preschoolers are ripe for learning about the earth. The Montessori Land Air Water lesson is a lot of fun for kids. They love the concept and there are loads of variations for parents and teachers to get creative!

“We live on the earth. It is made up of three things: land, water, and air.”

Land Air Water Geography Activity

This lesson is a great introductory one for preschoolers. I used these “props” to begin the lesson:

Cross-Section Earth Model

Earth: The Blue Planet (Our Solar System)

Air Is All Around You (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1)

Land Air Water Geography Lesson

Three containers
Water
Blue Liquid Water Color (to color the water)
Dirt
A piece of brown, blue and white construction paper
Cork or another kind of board to create your strips of water, land and air
Concrete objects to place in each area
A small basket for the small objects (most of our objects were from Safari Toobs)

Land Air Water Approach

I prepared the Land, Air, Water diagram ahead of time by gluing strips of blue, brown and white construction paper on a piece of cork board. I used Mod Podge to seal the paper and make it look a little shinier. Once that dried, I prepared the basket of objects and placed them next to the diagram and three jars that I filled with water (and a little blue liquid watercolor), land (dirt from our yard) and air.
Carry the tray to the child (or children).
Describe what is on the tray as they are: “This jar has dirt in it. This jar has water in it. This jar has air in it, we just cannot see it. This board has three areas: this blue area is water, this brown area is the land and this white are is the air.”
The first presentation I began placing the objects on the appropriate strip and named each object as I placed it down : “Airplane. Tractor. Duck.” The next times the work is used by your child, allow him the opportunity to name and/or place the objects.