Texas TEKS K.4.A

Social StudiesKindergartenGeography

The Standard

identify the physical characteristics of place such as landforms, bodies of water, Earth's resources, and weather

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies

Teacher's field guide

What This Standard Means

What Students Need to Do

Students name features they can observe in a place, including landforms, water, natural resources, and weather. They sort examples into the correct groups.

What Mastery Looks Like

A student can look at a picture and identify features such as a hill, river, trees, rocks, rain, or sunshine. The student can explain which features come from nature.

Common Misconceptions

Students may call buildings, roads, and playgrounds physical features because they can see and touch them. They may confuse weather, such as rain, with bodies of water, such as lakes.

How to Assess It

Show a picture with a hill, pond, trees, rain, and houses. Ask students to circle four natural features and name each one.

Lesson moves

Ways to Teach It

  1. Build a model place with clay, water, rocks, and twigs, then label its landform, water, resources, and weather.

  2. Show two landscape photos and ask, "What natural features are the same, and what features are different?"

  3. Play Picture Sort Relay using cards labeled landform, body of water, resource, weather, and human-made feature.

  4. Take a schoolyard walk and record natural features and current weather on a four-box observation sheet.

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