Volcanoes -KS2

An informative text to work on main idea, supporting details  and summarising skills.

VOLCANOS

 

A volcano is a place on the Earth's surface (or any other planet's or moon's surface) where molten rock, gases and debris erupt through the earth's crust. Volcanoes vary quite a bit in their structure - some are cracks in the earth's crust where lava erupts, and some are domes, shields, or mountain-like structures with a crater at the summit.

 

Magma is molten rock within the Earth's crust. When magma erupts through the earth's surface it is called lava. Lava can be thick and slow-moving or thin and fast-moving. Rock also comes from volcanoes in other forms, including ash (finely powdered rock that looks like dark smoke coming from the volcano), cinders (bits of fragmented lava), and pumice (light-weight rock that is full of air bubbles and is formed in explosive volcanic eruptions - this type of rock can float on water).

 

The word volcano comes from the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. Vulcan was said to have had a forge (a place to melt and shape iron) on Vulcano, an active volcano on the Lipari Islands in Italy.

 

 The largest volcano on Earth is Hawaii's Mauna Loa. Mauna Loa is about 10 km tall from the sea floor to its summit (it rises about 4 km above sea level). The largest volcano in our Solar System is perhaps Olympus Mons on the planet Mars. This enormous volcano is 27 km tall and over 520 km across.

 

Making your own volcano is easy. You just need vinegar and baking soda, but you can also add some dish soap and food coloring to make it look more realistic. Mixing baking soda and vinegar produces a chemical reaction in which carbon dioxide gas is created - the same gas that bubbles in a real volcano. The gas bubbles build in the bottle, forcing the liquid 'lava' mixture of the bottle and down the sides of your volcano.

 

Reading Comprehension:

 

1. What can volcanoes look like?

 

2. What is magma?

 

3. What kind of gas is released in both real volcanoes, and the ones you can make at home?

 

 

 

These are the main ideas found  in  the text .Which paragraph talks about each?

 

____ Instructions to make a model of a volcano.

 

____ Largest volcanoes known

 

____ What volcanoes are and their structure

 

____ Materials that come out when there is an eruption

 

____ Origin of the word Volcano

 

After reading the text, fill in this graphic organizer with the most important concepts.

Write in the middle the main idea of the whole text, what the text is about.

Inside of each of the other bubbles, write the topic sentence of each paragraph and two supporting details. Underline the topic sentence to differenciate it from the details.

 

 

Feel free to add more exercises and activities, eg vocabulary or grammar.