Who Lives in the Soil? Poster

About this printable

A teaspoon of healthy soil holds more tiny living things than there are people on Earth! This poster takes kids underground to meet the bigger ones, each drawn at the depth where it really lives.

What's on the poster

• A soil cutaway: leaf litter, topsoil and subsoil, with roots, ant tunnels and a deep earthworm burrow
• 8 creature fact cards: earthworm, springtail, pill bug, centipede, millipede, ant, ground beetle and fungi
• A "too small to see" magnifier showing bacteria and nematodes
• Surprising true facts: pill bugs are crustaceans, cousins of shrimp. Centipedes never have exactly 100 legs!

3 versions in every download

• Color poster: hang it on the wall
• Coloring page: the whole poster in line art for kids to color
• Label-it worksheet: names left blank, with a word bank

Print any size

• 8.5 × 11 in, A4, A3 and 18 × 24 in (portrait)
• Sharp vector PDFs: print at home, or send the large size to a print shop
• Files: the 8.5 × 11 in PDF of each version, plus a zip with all 12 files

Great for

Bug hunts, compost and decomposer units, homeschool nature study, science corners and Earth Day. Ages 4–10.

Same art as June and the Worm Hotel, so it pairs perfectly with the picture book.

This is a digital download. Nothing will be shipped. Download from Purchases and Reviews on etsy.com in a web browser (the Etsy app can't download files). Frame not included.

Good to know

• Personal-use license: print as many copies as your household needs. Teachers: one purchase covers your own classroom. Please don't resell or share the files.
• Want both posters? The Little Food Forest Poster Set includes this one and "The 7 Layers of a Food Forest."
• Facts checked against USDA NRCS, university extension and museum sources.