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5th grade · Science · Unit 8 of 15

The Rock Cycle

Igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic

What your child practices

How igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks form and change into one another, weathering and erosion, and a short reading passage.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 5.10(B) · how sedimentary rock forms

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Igneous rock forms when magma or lava cools.
  2. Sedimentary rock forms when pieces from weathering and erosion settle in layers and press together.
  3. Metamorphic rock forms when heat and pressure change a rock.
  4. The rock cycle has no start: any rock can become any other type.

Example: Lava from a volcano cools and hardens. Which kind of rock forms? Lava is melted rock. Rock that forms from cooled melted rock is igneous. Answer: igneous

The Rock Cycle in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 8 of 15 in 5th grade Science, after Weather and the Water Cycle and before Habitats & Communities.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Put the steps that make an igneous rock like basalt in order.

    • 🔥Rock deep underground melts into magma
    • 🌋It erupts from a volcano as lava
    • 🪨The lava cools and hardens into rock
    • ⬆️Magma rises toward the surface

  2. Question 2

    Granite is an igneous rock with large crystals. How did it form?

    🪨
    • limestone was heated and squeezed
    • mud was pressed into layers
    • magma cooled slowly underground
    • lava cooled in seconds in the air

  3. Question 3

    Limestone is heated and squeezed deep underground. What does it become?

    • sandstone
    • marble
    • granite
    • pumice

  4. Question 4

    Weathering or erosion? Tap an item, then tap its basket.

    Sort into: 🔨 weathering (breaking) · ➡️ erosion (moving)

    • 🏔️a glacier drags rocks downhill
    • 🧊ice freezes in a crack and splits a rock
    • 🌊waves carry pebbles along a beach
    • 🏞️a river carries sand downstream
    • 🌧️slightly acidic rain slowly dissolves limestone
    • 🌳tree roots grow into cracks and break rock

  5. Question 5

    In the passage, which process moved the pieces of granite downstream?

    A Pebble's Long Trip

    Long ago, magma deep under a mountain cooled very slowly and hardened into granite. Because it cooled so slowly, its crystals had time to grow large enough to see.

    Over millions of years, the mountain wore down and the granite reached the surface. Each winter, water froze in its cracks and split off small pieces. A river carried the pieces downstream, tumbling them until they were smooth pebbles and grains of sand.

    Where the river met a lake, the sand settled in layers on the bottom. More layers piled on top. Over a very long time, the weight pressed the layers together, and minerals in the water cemented the grains into sandstone.

    • erosion by a river
    • cooling
    • melting
    • cementing

  6. Question 6

    Which kind of rock is most likely to contain fossils?

    🐚
    • sedimentary
    • metamorphic
    • igneous

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