Landforms
Background Information & Activities

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What landforms can you find in your community? Your children should be familiar with different landforms in their neighborhood and beyond. Review that a landform is a natural formation or area of land. Continents, mountains, plateaus, hills, valleys, plains, coasts, bays, and islands are just a few examples of different landforms. We encourage screening this movie and then using different maps and globes to guide discussion about local landforms in your community, city, or state.

Earth is divided into seven continents: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica. Remind your children that there are also smaller landforms within the continents. If possible, take children on a walk in the neighborhood and point out different landforms. Look at a hill together and have your children notice how it rises above the surrounding area and has a rounded top. You may want to compare and contrast different hills in your community. A mountain is a landform that also rises above the surrounding area, but it has a peak. A row of connected mountains is called a range. You may wish to point out different mountain ranges in the United States. The longest mountain range is the Andes Mountains of South America, which extends for 4,400 miles and goes through seven countries. A plateau is similar to a mountain, but it has a flat surface on top.

A valley is a landform that is lower than the surrounding area. Valleys are often found between hills, mountains, and plateaus. Water from higher areas can flow down into valleys, creating rivers and streams. As a result, some lands in valleys are fertile and good for agriculture and grazing livestock. A canyon is a landform with very steep sides and "stepped" or layered walls. You may want to show pictures of the Grand Canyon, which is 5,000 feet deep and stretches between Arizona and Colorado. Canyons can form when rivers wear away at rocks over millions of years.

A plain is a wide, flat area of land. The Great Plains covers parts of the United States and Canada and, at 2,000 miles in length, is one of the largest expanses of grassland in the world. It provides land for farming and raising livestock due to its fertile soil and flat terrain. A prairie is a grassy plain with few or no trees, and prairies can be found on the Great Plains. However, it is important for your children to understand that plains can be covered by forests or ice. They can also be underwater, on the ocean floor.

A coast is where land meets an ocean. Coasts can be rocky and steep, or they can be relatively flat and sandy. A bay is an area of water surrounded by land on three sides. Bays often form when water wears away at the coast over thousands of years. The water inside of a bay is often calm, warm, and sheltered from wind. An island is an area of land that is surrounded by water. You may wish to point out different islands on a map. There are more than seven thousand islands in the Caribbean alone.

Help your children understand the world they live in beyond their communities. How might life be different if they lived on island? How might life be different if they lived on a mountain? Investigating different landforms allows children to explore the world without buying a plane ticket!

See more lesson plans and resources: BrainPOP Educators.

Landforms Teacher Activities

© 1999-2013 BrainPOP. All rights reserved.

Map It Out

Have your students create a relief or topographical map of their neighborhoods. You may first want to provide different examples of maps and discuss different landforms and map features. We also recommend viewing the Reading Maps movie with your class. You can print out simple blackline maps of your area from the Internet and have your students color in different landforms. Remind them to create a key for their maps, so they can indicate the different heights and depths of landforms such as hills and mountains, and canyons and chasms.

Model Students

Have your students make dioramas or three-dimensional models of a landform of their choice. They may want to research at the library to learn more about their landform before beginning their models. Encourage them to be creative! Students can glue sand, dirt, or grass to shoeboxes to create dioramas or, if they use waterproof materials like a plastic tub and modeling clay, they can pour water over their creation to see how water moves and settles around their landform.

Landform Travel Fair

Have students pick a specific landform they might like to visit (i.e. Cape Cod, Mt. St. Helens, or a specific island) and research exciting facts about their chosen place. Then hold a Travel Fair in your classroom. Students can find out about how the landform was formed, and learn about any cultural and historical events that might have taken place there. Then they can plan their booth and prepare posters for their landform. They might dress in related costumes, prepare local foods, or create travel guides for their chosen location. Students can travel from booth to booth to learn about different landforms around the world.

Landforms Family Activities

© 1999-2013 BrainPOP. All rights reserved.

Visit a Landform

Visit a landform with your child. You might want to hike on a mountain trail, visit the beach or coast, or take a bike ride along a plain or valley. This is a great opportunity to get some exercise together and learn about your area and its geography. Make sure your child brings notebooks, pencils, and crayons to take notes and make sketches. Ask your child to look for other landforms in your area that they would like to explore or learn about, such as hills and mountains.

This Land is Your Land

Have your child imagine living in a land completely different from where you currently live. How would life be different if you lived in the mountains? How would life be different if you lived on a coast, in the Great Plains, or on a very small Caribbean island? Have your child draw pictures, write stories, or even write a letter about his or her typical day in their new home.