Rocks and Minerals: The Fairy Garden
Welcome to the Fairy Garden, where sparkly crystals grow along the stream bank. Zoe has a wooden tray of pebbles and three magnifying glasses, and she wants to find out how her rocks are different.
Remember: Rocks are made of minerals, the way a cookie is made of ingredients. Scientists sort minerals by their properties: are they shiny or dull, and how hard are they? Hardness is how easy a mineral is to scratch: a harder mineral scratches a softer one. Diamond is the hardest mineral of all, and talc is the softest.
Magic trick: The scratcher is the harder one. If pebble A scratches pebble B, then A is harder.
Seek and Find
Look carefully at the picture of the Fairy Garden and find:
- 🪨 Find the 6 rocks in Zoe’s sorting tray. 2 rows of 3 = 6 rocks. Some are shiny and some are dull.
- 🔍 Find the 3 magnifying glasses. Up close, you can see the tiny grains of minerals in a rock.
- 💜 Find the 5 purple crystals by the stream. Crystals are minerals that grow in neat, flat-sided shapes.
- 🐱 Millie and her kitten Biscuit are hiding in every picture. Can you spot them?