What are tectonic plates?

The Earth’s surface is made up of big, moving pieces called tectonic plates.

Imagine your toy box is full of different blocks, some are big, like cars, and some are small, like tiny cubes. Now imagine those blocks are floating on a soft, squishy mattress. That's kind of what the Earth’s surface is like! The tectonic plates are like those blocks, moving slowly across the Earth’s soft layer underneath them.

The Earth has a special layer called the mantle, which acts like the squishy mattress beneath the tectonic plates. Heat from deep inside the Earth makes this mantle move, pushing and pulling the tectonic plates like a gentle wind pushes your sails on a toy boat.

When these big blocks bump into each other or slide past one another, they can cause things like mountains to form, volcanoes to erupt, or even earthquakes, just like when two blocks crash in your toy box and make a loud thud!