Everything You Need to Teach about Natural Disasters

Natural Disasters Activities blog post image

Teaching kids about natural disasters is an essential part of any primary or elementary school curriculum. However, it can be a complex subject to teach, especially when the topic is serious, and could lead to fear and anxiety in students. As an educator, you want to balance educating your students about natural disasters while keeping the learning experience fun and engaging. In this blog post, we will share some easy natural disasters activities that will keep them motivated and eager to learn.

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Make a Natural Disaster Handbook

Natural Disasters Activities handbook picture

One of my favorite natural disasters activities is to create a natural disaster handbook. The handbook could include illustrations or photographs of different disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods. Have the children label the different parts of each disaster, explain how it happens, and what the aftermath looks like. Be sure to include tips on how to stay safe and ways to prepare.

By creating a handbook on natural disasters, students can better understand how they behave and what they should do in case of a disaster.

Conduct Experiments

Natural Disasters nonfiction reader picture

Conducting experiments in the classroom is a fun way to illustrate how natural disasters work. For instance, students could simulate earthquakes by shaking a table with different weights on it, measuring the intensity of the tremors and the damage caused. Similarly, they could show the effects of floods by creating a model with clay or building blocks and filling it with water.

By conducting experiments, students can experience how different disasters take place and how they can cause damage to property and people.

Watch Videos

Watching videos is an amazing way to capture students’ attention while teaching about natural disasters. There are numerous documentaries, YouTube channels, and educational videos that explain the science behind natural disasters such as hurricanes or volcanoes. These videos could be shown, either as a class or in small groups, to help students learn about the topic more realistically.

Play Games

Games are an excellent way to teach students about natural disasters while keeping them engaged and having fun. Many online and in-person games simulate earthquakes or hurricanes, allowing students to experience how they work and how to prepare for them. For instance, students could play an online game that teaches them how to evacuate a building during a fire or how to put out a wildfire. The learning experience is more fun, and the children will remember the lessons more quickly too.

Read Stories

Reading stories to the class is another great way to introduce natural disasters. There are many children’s books that cover natural disasters, such as Thundercake by Patricia Polacco, The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole, and The Earth Shook by Simon Winchester. Such books help students learn about natural disasters without any overwhelming anxiety.

Natural disaster activities for the classroom!

Teaching about natural disasters can be both educational and fun if the lessons are engaging and interactive. By using the tools discussed above, such as creating a natural disaster handbook, conducting experiments, watching videos, playing games, and reading stories to your class, you can capture your students’ enthusiasm while enabling them to learn something useful.

It’s important to remember that while educating children about natural disasters, we should balance the information appropriately without burdening the little minds with too much information. Finally, teaching kids to prepare and remain calm in the face of natural disasters is crucial in helping them stay safe and resilient throughout their lives.

Grab This Natural Disasters Activities Unit

I’ve made an engaging Natural Disasters unit with print and go activities, nonfiction readers, detailed lesson plans, worksheets, lab investigations, and quizzes for each lesson. You can grab it HERE!

This bundle of fun Natural Disasters unit includes vocabulary cards with real-life pictures, posters to help introduce the topic, anchor chart templates, and extra worksheets perfect for homework or early finisher work. Aligned to TEKS and most state science standards too! This unit will save you hours of planning time!