Earth's Spheres Activities for 5th Grade Science

The Kesler Science Earth's Spheres 5E Lesson is an engaging elementary science unit focused on teaching students about interactions among Earth's spheres. Through class discussions, vocabulary-building activities, and differentiated hands-on labs, students investigate key concepts and essential questions. The lesson includes editable presentations, interactive notebooks, reading passages available in English and Spanish, multimedia resources, and student-choice projects designed to accommodate diverse learning styles. Formal assessments, including review questions and worksheets, help teachers evaluate student understanding, making this a versatile resource for both classroom and virtual learning environments. The resources below will give students a comprehensive understanding of Earth's spheres. All of the following materials are also included in the Kesler Science Membership.

The Kesler Science Earth's Spheres 5E Lesson is a comprehensive elementary science unit designed to teach students about interactions between Earth's spheres. It offers a variety of fully editable, differentiated resources including presentations, worksheets, student-choice projects, and assessments aligned with STAAR 2.0 standards.

Following the well-established 5E Model, students engage with essential questions about the interactions and impacts between Earth's spheres through class discussions and vocabulary-building activities. They explore the concepts through a differentiated station lab featuring hands-on experiments, reading passages in English and Spanish, research tasks, multimedia content, and interactive output activities.

For deeper understanding, editable PowerPoints and interactive notebooks are provided in both digital and printable formats, accommodating multimodal learning and virtual environments. Students can further elaborate their understanding through choice projects, and their knowledge is evaluated through formal assessments, including review questions and worksheets. Spanish translations are available to support diverse learners, making this resource highly adaptable for various classroom and virtual teaching scenarios.

Engage your 5th-grade students with this interactive, student-led station lab aligned with NGSS standards. This modular lesson on Earth’s spheres promotes personalized learning through eight differentiated activities, plus a bonus challenge station for early finishers.

Students independently explore how Earth's spheres interact, using hands-on demonstrations, digital manipulatives, guided research, engaging readings available in English and Spanish, and informative videos. They demonstrate their understanding by organizing information, illustrating concepts, responding to short-answer prompts, and completing assessments.

All stations include clear instructions, task cards, and necessary resources, making this activity suitable for in-class or virtual learning environments. This low-prep, high-engagement lesson encourages active learning and critical thinking.

The Earth's Spheres Student Choice Projects align with NGSS science standards, offering fifth-grade students engaging project options that match their preferred output styles. The lesson includes six diverse, student-led projects plus a customizable "design your own" option. An editable rubric is provided for teacher, peer, or self-assessment, evaluating vocabulary, concepts, presentation, clarity, and accuracy.

These flexible, multimodal projects allow students personalized ways to demonstrate understanding. Differentiated project pages are available, including modified options to support students requiring remediation and challenge options for advanced learners. Teachers can easily adjust rubrics to fit grading requirements.

Projects utilize standard classroom supplies such as paper, markers, and scissors, and many can be completed digitally. Optional crafting materials may enhance model-building activities.

This 5th Grade Earth Science Interactive Notebook is essential for teachers seeking to maximize student engagement when teaching elementary earth science concepts. It is versatile for traditional classrooms, 1:1 digital settings, or distance learning, providing both digital and paper versions. Digital resources feature interactive PowerPoint files compatible with Google Slides, MS Teams, Schoology, and Canvas, reflection pages, note-taking spaces, teacher answer keys, and modified versions for students needing accommodations. The paper resources include blank templates, pre-filled versions for absent or modified instruction students, and color photos demonstrating template usage.

Topics covered include the brightness of the Sun and stars, observable patterns of the sky, Earth's spheres, the distribution of water on Earth, protecting Earth's resources, sedimentary rock and fossil fuels, changes to Earth's surface, weather and climate, the water cycle, Earth’s rotation, and the Sun, the Moon, and Earth. These notebook templates also integrate seamlessly into Kesler Science 5E Lessons.

The Earth's Spheres Science Writing Activity engages 5th grade students in a creative skit or drama exercise aligned to NGSS 5-ESS2-1, which involves exploring Earth's systems through patterns of shadows, day and night cycles, and seasonal star appearances. This low-prep, student-centered resource enhances students' scientific reasoning and writing skills in both print and digital formats, suitable for classroom or virtual learning.

Included are teacher directions with answer guides, project ideas, and rubrics; projection-friendly versions; full-sized and half-sheet printable handouts with prompts, student self-checks, and pre-writing templates; and an interactive digital option compatible with PowerPoint and Google Slides. Ideal for cross-curricular activities, formative assessments, student choice projects, extra credit, differentiation, and TELPAS samples, these prompts are especially beneficial as elaboration tasks or reviews, assuming students already have foundational knowledge or access to research resources.

The WIKI Tickets© Formative Assessments provide engaging, colorful ways to quickly gauge student understanding in 3rd–5th grade science. The Earth/Space Science Set includes 33 topics, each offering five flexible formats: a full-screen projection option, three printable handouts (full, split, and quarter-page sizes), and an interactive digital version compatible with PowerPoint and Google Slides.

Aligned with NGSS and TEKS standards, these assessments cover essential topics such as Earth's spheres, Earth's surface changes, natural resources, the solar system, the water cycle, and erosion. They work effectively as exit tickets, bellringers, or quick checks, suitable for both in-person and virtual classrooms.

Year-Round Resources

These year-round activities will increase your students' understanding of many middle school science topics. All of these activities are also included in the Kesler Science Membership.

Visual Data & Graphing

You're not alone if your students struggle with understanding graphs, charts, and tables. It's a skill that takes an enormous amount of practice. This resource will help students build a strong foundation in analyzing data and creating their own data visualizations.

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Bell Ringers and Warm-Ups

These middle school science bell ringers are an excellent way to engage your students as soon as they walk into your classroom. This comprehensive FULL YEAR resource includes everything you need to start off each science class with an interesting warm-up activity.

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Review Board Games

Each game board has been carefully designed to keep students engaged. There are 10 different action spaces on each board and dozens of question cards. All of the actions are related to science concepts and keep the students motivated throughout the game.

Each game is ready to play. Simply print out the board and the cards and let the students enjoy reviewing nine different units.

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Essential Questions and Standards

Below are the essential questions and standards associated with the lessons and activities included in the Earth's spheres unit. This topic is only one of more than 100 middle school science topics included in the Kesler Science Membership.

Essential Questions

What drives interactions between Earth’s spheres?
Will a change in one sphere positively or negatively impact another sphere?

Standards

NGSS - 5-ESS2-1 Earth's Spheres