Landforms - Early Primary Educational Standard

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Students learn the characteristics of mountains, hills, canyons, valleys, islands and coastlines.

Our planet, Earth, is made up of two parts, water and land.  Land can look differently and have different features. We call these different features landforms. Some landforms are located up high, and some are down low.

One kind of landform is very tall and sticks up above the surrounding areas. These land forms are called mountains. Mountains often form in long rows called mountain ranges. The sides of mountains are usually very steep and rocky. The tops are also rocky and jagged. Some mountains are so tall, the tops are covered with snow all year round. 

There is another landform that looks almost like a mountain, but is not as tall. These landforms are called hills. The sides of hills have a gentler slope. The tops of hills are also more rounded than the tops of mountains.

Canyons can be found where two mountains come together. These canyons are often v-shaped. The sides of canyons are steep. Another kind of canyon forms when water washes out deep grooves in the land. These canyons have rocky sides and a river at the bottom. The Grand Canyon is example of this kind of canyon. Water has been carving out the Grand Canyon for over six million years. The Colorado River has carved this canyon a mile deep into the earth. 

Sometimes, a wide flat area is formed that is surrounded by mountains on 2 to 4 of its sides. This wide flat area is called a valley. Valleys can be good places to grow food because they often have lots of rich soil that has been washed down from the sides of the surrounding mountains. Valleys come in different sizes. Some are small mountain valleys. Other valleys are very large.

This landform is called an island. An island is land that is completely surrounded by water. Islands can be surrounded by lakes, rivers or oceans.

The place where land and the ocean meet is called the coast, the coastline or the seashore. Parts of the coastline have wide beaches. These are good places to spend the day playing in the waves and building sandcastles in the sand. In some areas of the coastline, the land drops sharply off from tall cliffs and meets the ocean at the rocks below.

We've covered a lot of ground today. We started high up in the mountains and hills. We moved down to the canyons and valleys. We learned about islands, which are completely surrounded by water. And finally, we ended up on the coast, where land and ocean meet.

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Education

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• landforms
• mountains
• valleys
• canyons
• coast
• coastline
• seashore
• islands
• educational