Mountains and valleys

Ages 3 to 5 Read and do together · about 15 minutes

Read together

A mountain is very high. A valley is low between mountains.

Rivers often run through valleys.

Do it

1. Make a landscape from a blanket. Bunch it up for mountains, flatten it for a valley.
2. Roll a ball from the mountain. Where does it stop? Water goes the same way.
3. Look at a picture of mountains and name a high place and a low place.
4. If you can, visit a hill and look down.

Talk about it

• Which is higher, a mountain or a valley?
• Where would the water run?

For the grown-up

Landforms shape where people live and where water flows. Stay on safe paths on real hills and keep hold of small hands near edges.

Mark as done

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Where this comes from

• NGSS Lead States, Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States (National Academies Press, 2013), performance expectation 2-ESS2-2 (maps of land and water shapes)
• United States Geological Survey, educational pages on landforms and watersheds

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.