Maggie’s
Activity Pack
Name __________________________
Date ___________________________
Climb into Some Glacier Sentences!
Lots of snow fell. I think
I have a glacier in my
yard!
No, they take a long time
to form. Let’s read more
facts about them.
Making these sentences will help you learn about glaciers.
Part 1: Is It A Complete Sentence?
A sentence must have a subject and verb. It needs to tell a complete thought.
Read each sentence. Write S if it is a complete sentence. Write F if it is just
part of a sentence. If it is a sentence, put a punctuation mark after it.
______ 1. A glacier is a mass of ice that is bigger
______ 2. A glacier must be bigger than one tenth of a square kilometer
______ 3. Do people think a glacier has to move
______ 4. In some places the snow never melts
______ 5. This snow is changed to
© Maggie's Earth Adventures, LLC 2007. Teachers may reproduce for classroom use.
______ 6. Before snow becomes glacier ice, it is called firn
______ 7. Firn contains a lot of water
______ 8. Air pockets between ice crystals tiny
______ 9. These pockets are then called glacier ice
______ 10. Glacier ice isn’t much colder than regular ice
______ 11. There are 616 named glaciers in Alaska
______ 12. My mother told that worms and insects can live in glaciers
______ 13. Is it true that glaciers store about 70% of the world’s freshwater
______ 14. Can grow and shrink
______ 15. Glaciers leave behind sand, gravel, and silt
______ 16. Left the remains of a whale in Vermont
Part 2: Talking About Glaciers
Sometimes students have so many ideas that they write on and on. They forget
to end their sentences! Read these sentences. Put periods and capital letters
where they belong.
1. The ice in Jenny’s yard is not a glacier because glaciers are very big they
stay in a place for years and years sometimes they move very slowly.
2. The snow stays all year every year new snow packs down the snow from
years before
3. About 10% of land is covered by glaciers the ice in the Antarctic is over
4200 meters thick in some places.
© Maggie's Earth Adventures, LLC 2007. Teachers may reproduce for classroom use.
Dear Colleague,
Last year at this time I was lucky enough to visit Mt. Cook in New Zealand and
experience the beauty of glaciers and glacial lakes. I knew that I needed to learn more about
these incredible aspects of nature. This week, I thought it appropriate to share some of these
earth science facts with your students.
After completing these sentence exercises, have students discuss with a partner or in
small groups what they’ve learned about glaciers. You can extend the language lesson by
having individuals, partners, or groups write a paragraph complete with topic sentence and
supporting details. You may also assign students to learn more about various kinds of
glaciers. Geography-minded children could make a world map with a twist. Have them notate
countries and regions where glaciers are found.
Happy winter teaching!
Kathy
Answer Key: (You may want to have your students fix the sentence fragments.)
I have included sentences with varying structure so your children can see that sentences don’t always
have the noun – verb – noun pattern.
F 1. A glacier is a mass of ice that is bigger
S 2. A glacier must be bigger than one tenth of a square kilometer.
S 3. Do people think a glacier has to move?
S 4. In some places the snow never melts.
F 5. This snow is changed to
S 6. Before snow becomes glacier ice, it is called firn.
S 7. Firn contains a lot of water.
F 8. Air pockets between ice crystals tiny
S 9. These pockets are then called glacier ice.
S10. Glacier ice isn’t much colder than regular ice.
S11. There are 616 named glaciers in Alaska.
F12. My mother told that worms and insects can live in glaciers
S13. Is it true that glaciers store about 70% of the world’s freshwater?
F14. Can grow and shrink
S15. Glaciers leave behind sand, gravel, and silt.
F 16. Left the remains of a whale in Vermont
1. The ice in Jenny’s yard is not a glacier because glaciers are very big. They stay in a place for years
and years. Sometimes they move very slowly.
2. The snow stays all year. Every year new snow packs down the snow from years before.
3. About 10% of land is covered by glaciers. The ice in the Antarctic is over 4200 meters thick in
some places.
Goals:
Students will learn about glaciers in this language lesson. Intermediate level students will
identify demonstrative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences. They will also demonstrate
the correct use of periods, question marks, and exclamation points along with adding
commas and quotation marks to conversation. Primary students will identify sentence
fragments and complete sentences. They will then place periods in the correct place in runon sentences and add capital letters. Ideas for using these glacier facts are provided for the
teacher. The activity correlates with the IRA/NCTE Standard, “Students apply knowledge of
language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques,
figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts
© Maggie's Earth Adventures, LLC 2007. Teachers may reproduce for classroom use.
© Maggie's Earth Adventures, LLC 2007. Teachers may reproduce for classroom use.