Unit 3: Materials in my world

Do you know what things are made of?

Things are made of many different materials.

How many materials can you name?

What materials can you see in the playground?

Can you see water, wood, plastic, metal, glass, rock, paper, fabric and rubber?

What other materials can you see?

Look around your classroom or school.

What are things made of?

Use your eyes. Observe carefully. What does the material look like?

Use your hands. What does the material feel like?

Draw some of the things and write the name of the materials.

You will need: paper and pencils, a clipboard or stiff card to lean on.

Was it easy to name the materials by looking at them?

How did the materials feel?

Tell a friend why it helped you to feel the materials.

Look around you. Feel some materials.

Tell your friends how the material feels.

Look at the house. What materials can you see?

Point to some clothes.

Clothes are made from fabric. Many fabrics are soft and flexible.

What would metal clothes be like?

What other materials have been used? What properties do they have?

Draw something from the picture.

Write the name of the material.

Write or talk about some properties of the material.

Observe some different fabrics. Which are rough? Which are smooth?

Look closely with a magnifying glass.

Feel the fabrics.

Sort the fabrics. Put them in order from rough to smooth.

You will need: four different fabrics, a magnifying glass.

Which material is the best?

Is it water?

Did you find it easy to put the fabrics in order?

Which fabrics were not easy to sort?

Why were they not easy?

Look at some things in your classroom.

Put things that are similar into groups. Give each group a name.

The children are sorting waste materials into groups.

What materials can you see?

What groups would you make?

When we recycle materials we can use them again.

Which of these materials could be used again?

This girl has sorted her materials.

Which materials can you see?

Sort the materials.

Put all the metal things in a group.

Put all the plastic things in a group.

What other groups can you make?

Some metal things can be sharp. Be careful when touching them.

You will need: some things made of different materials.

There are different ways to sort materials.

Are these things in the right groups?

Which group does the spoon go in?

Make some groups like this.

Put all your hard things in one group. Put all your soft things in a different group.

Now put all your rough things in one group. Put all your smooth things in a different group.

What other groups can you make?

These children are testing materials to find out more about them.

They are finding the answer to a question: 'Which materials are flexible?'

What question could you ask about materials?

How could you test your materials to find out?