Living on the Earth: Our Wonderful World

Hello, explorers! Get ready for an amazing journey around our home, Planet Earth. In this chapter, we'll discover what our world's surface looks like and meet the incredible people, plants, and animals who live in very different and exciting places. Learning this helps us understand and care for our amazing planet and everyone on it!


Our Big Home: A Look at Earth's Surface

Imagine you're an astronaut looking at Earth from space. You'd see a beautiful big ball of blue, white, green, and brown. This outside part is called the Earth's surface. Let's look at what it's made of!

Part 1: The Giant Puzzles Pieces - Continents and Oceans

The Earth's surface is mainly divided into two things: huge pieces of land and giant pools of water.

Continents are the massive pieces of land on Earth. This is where we build our homes, schools, and cities. There are seven continents in total!

Oceans are the enormous areas of salt water that separate the continents. They are so big they cover most of our planet!

Analogy Time! Think of our Earth as a big blueberry muffin. The yummy muffin part is the land (continents) and the juicy blueberries are the giant pools of water (oceans)!

Did you know?

More than 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by water from the oceans. That's why Earth is often called the "Blue Planet"!

Quick Review!

Remember: The giant pieces of land on Earth are called continents. The huge bodies of salt water between them are called oceans.

Part 2: Features and Changes on the Surface

The land on the continents isn't all the same. It has different features, like tall mountains, flat fields called plains, and dry, sandy deserts. These features make every part of the world unique.

The Earth's surface also changes over time. Don't worry, these changes happen very, VERY slowly. Wind and water can slowly wear away rock and soil, changing the shape of mountains and rivers over thousands of years. It's like how the waves at the beach can slowly change the shape of a sandcastle.

Key Takeaway for this Section

The big idea is: The Earth's surface is made of huge land masses called continents and vast oceans. This land has different features (like mountains and plains) and is always changing very slowly.


Life in Different Places: Climates Around the World!

Have you ever wondered why polar bears don't live in a hot desert? It's because of the climate! Climate is the usual weather a place has over a very long time. Let's travel to a few places with very different climates to see how people and living things survive there.

Easy way to remember: Weather is the outfit you wear today (maybe a raincoat!). Climate is your whole wardrobe, with clothes for every season.

1. Super Hot and Dry Places: The Deserts
  • Climate: Very, very hot during the day and very little rain. It's extremely dry.
  • How People Live: People often wear light, loose-fitting clothes to stay cool. Some build homes with thick walls to keep the heat out.
  • Amazing Animals and Plants: Camels are perfect for the desert! They can store fat in their humps for energy and drink lots of water at once. Cacti (a type of plant) store water in their stems and have sharp spines instead of leaves to stop animals from eating them.
2. Super Hot and Wet Places: Equatorial Regions
  • Climate: It's hot all year round, but it's also very rainy and wet! Think of a rainforest.
  • How People Live: Some people build homes on stilts to keep them dry when it rains a lot. They wear light clothing because it's always warm.
  • Amazing Animals and Plants: Monkeys and toucans live high up in the tall trees. The trees have huge leaves to soak up as much sunlight as they can.
3. Super Cold Places: The Polar Regions
  • Climate: It is freezing cold! The ground is often covered in ice and snow.
  • How People Live: People who live here, like the Inuit, wear thick layers of clothing made from animal fur to stay warm. A traditional home called an igloo is shaped like a dome to trap heat inside.
    • - Amazing Animals and Plants: Polar bears have thick fur and a layer of fat to keep warm. Penguins huddle together in big groups to share body heat. Very few plants can grow here.
4. 'Just Right' Places: The Plains
  • Climate: These areas are not too hot and not too cold. They have different seasons, like summer, autumn, winter, and spring.
  • How People Live: This climate is great for farming because the land is often flat and the weather is good for growing food. People change their clothes depending on the season—t-shirts in summer and coats in winter!
  • Amazing Animals and Plants: So many different animals live here, like deer, rabbits, and squirrels. You'll find lots of grass and big trees that might lose their leaves in the winter.
Key Takeaway for this Section

The big idea is: People, animals, and plants have special ways to live in different climates all over the world. Whether it's a camel's hump or a polar bear's thick fur, every living thing has ways to survive in its home. This is called adaptation!


Great job, explorer! You've learned so much about our Earth's surface and the amazing ways life exists all over our wonderful world. Keep being curious!