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KS2 Science textbook

Chapter 7: Rocks, fossils and soils

  • Strand Rocks
  • Level Year 3
  • Practice 97 questions with step-by-step solutions

National Curriculum for England, Key Stage 2 science, Year 3. Content: R1 compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple physical properties, R2 describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock, R3 recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter.

Open Year 3 chapter

By the end of this chapter you will be able to

  • Describe rocks by their colour, texture, layers, sparkly crystals and holes, and sort them into groups
  • Say whether a rock is hard or soft, and whether water can soak into it (permeable)
  • Name the four parts of soil: broken-down rock, organic matter, air and water
  • Read the results of a fair test on how water soaks through soils, and say what was changed and measured
  • Say what a fossil is, and tell remains from traces
  • Put the stages of fossil formation in order, and read the layers of rock in a diagram

You should already know

  • The parts of a flowering plant, including the roots (Year 3 Science, Chapter 2)
  • What plants need from the soil: water and nutrients (Year 3 Science, Chapter 3)

Where this leads

  • Light and shadows, and more fair tests (Year 3 Science, Chapter 8)
  • The properties of materials in more detail (Year 5 Science)

Lessons in this chapter

  1. 7.1 Different kinds of rock
  2. 7.2 Hard, soft and permeable rocks
  3. 7.3 What soil is made of
  4. 7.4 Water through soils: a fair test
  5. 7.5 What a fossil is
  6. 7.6 How fossils form in layers
  7. Summary and key words
  8. Check-up and practice test questions

Read the whole chapter on one page (good for printing).