Volcanoes! Lava! Eruption! This is a brilliant topic for so many age groups and ClassVR can help keep that fire of enthusiasm burning brightly. Take your class to the edge of a lava lake on Erta Ale in Ethiopia or perhaps even inside an Icelandic volcano that erupted 4000 years ago and just see their reaction…
Eyes wide, they will be eager to know more. Use this as an opportunity to discuss what they saw inside the magma chambers deep underground. What can this tell you about how volcanoes are formed? Through investigating this, they will learn more about the Earth’s structure and they could even create a model using different coloured pieces of modelling clay. In English they could use this knowledge to write explanation texts.
Learning about volcanoes in primary school is also an ideal platform to look at the rock cycle to help understand the different types of rock and how they are formed. A practical way of looking at this is by using different types of grated chocolate (white, milk and plain) to act as pieces of sediment and show how when these settle in layers and pressure is applied, it forms sedimentary rock.
Students can still look at artists mentioned in the original lesson plan but to suit younger children, perhaps have more of a focus on experimenting with different media to create the effect of different textures.