Use easy-to-make salt dough, made from salt, flour and water, to create models of landforms. Upper level students can mix and color the dough independently. Separate the dough into small portions and color it with food dye in earth tone colors so no painting is necessary. Have students spread earth- or aquatic-colored dough as a thin base in a box lid. Students can add additional dough in various shapes, sizes and colors, to create different landform models.
Instruct students to imagine a small island containing several different types of landforms. Use the landforms most appropriate for your grade level or curriculum. Have students create a mini model from colored modeling clay in a foam plate. Instruct students to spread thin, blue clay in the plate as a base. On top of this, students create an island mound of brown or green clay. Provide students with a list of other landforms to build from clay on the island, such as hills, cliffs or shoals. This project is appropriate for lower or upper elementary kids.
After studying landforms, have older students create a mini-book that introduces each landform with an illustration, description and map showing where examples of this landform can be found. Provide students with plain, white paper, stapled together book-style, and a list of landforms to include. Instruct the students to create a book cover, table of contents and illustrated page for each landform.
A poster chart is adaptable to any grade level in which students have writing capability. Give each student a piece of poster board and list of landforms to include on the chart. Instruct students to create a four-column chart. At the top of each of the columns, have students write one of these words: landform, definition, where, illustration. For each landform on the chart, students write the landform name, an original definition, three locations in the world that contain that landform, and draw a small illustration of it.