Volcano worksheets for kids

Free printable volcano worksheets for kids

A mountain that breathes fire, rocks that float, fountains of hot water shooting out of the ground — volcanoes are one of the most exciting science topics for children. On this page you can print free volcano worksheets for kids: volcano coloring pages, “Fire or water?”, label the pictures, a layers of the Earth diagram, fact cards about eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis, and a maze to the volcano — with answer keys and no sign-up.

This is a generator, not a single PDF: every click picks new pictures, shuffles the pages and builds a new maze, so you can print one page for today or five different pages for an Earth science week.

Volcanoes, hot water and the Earth

The pages show a volcano, an eruption, lava, a crater, a volcanic bomb, pumice, a geyser, a hot spring, a mountain, a volcanic island and planet Earth, and the fact cards add four big Earth events: eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis and tectonic plates. The drawings are simple and friendly, made for children aged 5 to 10, and each one shows one clear idea.

Volcano coloring pages

Choose one big picture per page for younger children, or two, four or six smaller ones with their names. The coloring outlines are drawn from the color pictures, so every part — the smoke clouds, the lava streams, the crater rim — has its own clear shape to color. Turn on the small color picture in the corner if your child wants to copy the colors. When you print several pages, the pictures don’t repeat until all eleven have been used.

Fire or water?

The heat deep inside the Earth makes two very different things. Sometimes it melts rock — that is lava, a volcanic bomb, pumice. Sometimes it heats water underground — that is a geyser or a hot spring. Each page shows six pictures, and children circle “fire” or “water”. Every page has both kinds, and the answer key marks the right choice. It is a simple way to understand that geysers and hot springs are also “volcano things”.

Label the pictures

Six colored pictures, each with a line for writing, and a word bank with the six names in a different order. Children look at each picture, find its name and copy it carefully: crater, pumice, geyser, volcanic island. Real science words, learned one picture at a time. The answer key writes every name under its picture.

Layers of the Earth

A big cut-away diagram of our planet with four empty boxes connected to the layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core. Children write each name in its box using the word bank, then color the layers with the color key: crust green, mantle orange, outer core red, inner core yellow. The answer key shows the diagram in color with every label in place. It is the classic “layers of the Earth” worksheet for elementary science, simple enough for a first grader with a little help.

Volcano and Earth fact cards

Fourteen cards on three pages, six per page. Each card has a color picture, the name, a group — from a volcano, hot water, land and Earth, or Earth event — and a fact for young children: “Pumice is so light that it floats on water”, “Under the ground the same melted rock is called magma”, “The plates move about as fast as your fingernails grow”. Cut the cards out and sort them, use them for a science table, or play “What am I?”.

Maze: to the volcano

A volcanologist in a protective suit waits at the top of the maze and a smoking volcano at the bottom. Choose easy, medium or hard; every click builds a brand-new maze with exactly one path, and the answer key shows it.

Learning with volcanoes

• Science vocabulary. Magma, lava, crater, crust, mantle, core, plates, eruption — words children will use again in school.
• Cause and effect. Heat inside the Earth melts rock and heats water; moving plates make mountains and earthquakes.
• Diagrams. Labeling the layers of the Earth is a first step to reading science diagrams.
• Safety. The cards about earthquakes and tsunamis are a calm way to start a talk about what to do in an emergency.
• Fine motor skills. Coloring, cutting and maze-solving build hand control.

An idea for a volcano unit: read the fact cards, sort fire and water, label the layers of the Earth, then build a baking-soda volcano and color the eruption page while it fizzes.

Printing tips. The pages print on A4 or US Letter — choose the paper size and everything fits. Coloring pages, labels and the maze look fine in black and white. The layers of the Earth page is meant to be colored by the children, so black and white is perfect there too; print the answer key in color for the teacher. The fact cards are nicest in color and last longer on card stock. For a class set, choose five different pages so that neighbors get different pictures. Finished pages stapled together make a little “My Volcano Book” to take home — children love to explain to their family what magma is and why pumice floats.

More worksheets you may like

For more science, see our dinosaur worksheets, solar system worksheets, ocean animals worksheets and human body worksheets. For weather, there is a weather chart, and more mazes are in the maze generator.

Frequently asked questions

Choose a page type, click “New pages” and print.