View largerPlate tectonics for Kids: plate boundaries poster
Describing how Earth's plates move and what happens at their edges
1 page30 KB
Plate Tectonics Worksheets
Earth's moving plates, plate boundaries, the evidence that continents moved, and the pattern of volcanoes and earthquakes.
Download the plate tectonics worksheets
Moving plates
View larger
View all 2 pagesPlate boundaries Worksheet: how are the plates Moving?
Identifying the motion at plate boundaries from diagrams
Answer key on page 2
2 pages36 KB
Evidence and patterns
View all 2 pagesPlate tectonics reading passage for 4th grade
Explaining evidence that Earth's plates and continents move
Answer key on page 2
2 pages61 KB
View all 2 pagesEarthquake and volcano Patterns: plate boundaries data
Analyzing data to find patterns in where volcanoes and earthquakes happen
Answer key on page 2
2 pages51 KB
View all 2 pagesPlate boundaries and earth features matching
Matching Earth features to the plate movements that formed them
Answer key on page 2
2 pages28 KB
Words and review
View all 2 pagesPlate tectonics vocabulary worksheet
Using plate tectonics vocabulary in context
Answer key on page 2
2 pages38 KB
View all 2 pagesPlate tectonics quiz for 4th grade
Reviewing plates, boundaries and the patterns of Earth's features
Answer key on page 2
2 pages39 KB
Print at 100% (actual size) for the cleanest tracing lines.
About these plate tectonics worksheets
Earth's crust is broken into giant pieces called plates. They move only a few centimeters a year, but over millions of years they build mountains, open oceans and move whole continents.
These plate tectonics worksheets start with a poster of the ways plates move, then ask children to name the motion at four boundaries. A reading passage explains the puzzle of the continents and Pangaea, a data page reveals the pattern of volcanoes and earthquakes near plate edges, and a matching page links real places to the plate movements that made them.
Every page is black and white, prints on US Letter or A4, and every page with right answers has an answer key on page 2.
Standards
NGSS 4-ESS2-2Analyze and interpret data from maps to describe patterns of Earth’s features.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.1Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.4Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words or phrases in a text relevant to a grade 4 topic or subject area.
How to use them
- Use two pieces of cardboard or two graham crackers on frosting to act out pulling apart, pushing together and sliding past.
- Cut out continents from a world map and try to fit South America and Africa together before reading the passage.
- Use the data page to make a claim about where earthquakes happen.
Teaching tips
- Plates move about as fast as fingernails grow.
- Most earthquakes, volcanoes and tall mountain ranges are near plate edges. Hot spots like Hawaii are an exception.
- Pangaea began breaking apart about 200 million years ago.
Questions teachers and parents ask
What is plate tectonics?
It is the idea that Earth's crust is broken into large plates that move slowly. Where plates meet, they pull apart, push together or slide past each other.
What happens at plate boundaries?
Pulling apart makes new crust and ocean ridges. Pushing together builds mountains and, where one plate sinks under another, volcanoes. Sliding past causes earthquakes.
What was Pangaea?
A huge landmass that held almost all the continents about 200 million years ago, before they slowly drifted apart.