Materials and their
properties
How The world works
Grade 5 2018/2019
What is material?
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A material is a physical substance used to
make things.
Metals, plastics, ceramics, glass and fibres
are some of the main categories for
materials.
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Everything we see made of a material (sometimes more
than one material)
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Clothes are made from fibres
Chairs are made from plastic
Window is made of glass
Can you mention some other else?
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What is Properties of a material?
A property of a material is a description of
the characteristics which it has.
They are adjectives which tell us about the
material.
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● Materials have different properties and
characteristics depending on what they are used for.
● Some materials are hard, others are soft. Some are
strong, others are weak.
What do you think the properties of paper or pencil, or table?
OPAQUE
YOU CANNOT SEE THROUGH IT
TRANSLUCENT
YOU CAN SEE THROUGH IT A BIT
TRANSPARENT
YOU CAN SEE COMPLETELY THROUGH IT
HARD
DIFFICULT TO SCRATCH OR SQUASH
STRONG
DIFFICULT TO BREAK
WATERPROOF
DOES NOT SOAK UP WATER OR LET WATER THROUGH
ABSORBENT
SOAK UP WATER
SYNTHETIC
MAN-MADE
NATURAL
NOT MAN-MADE
BRITTLE
HARD BUT EASILY BROKEN
FLEXIBLE
CAN BE BENT
RIGID
CANNOT BE BENT
MAGNETIC
ATTRACTED TO MAGNET
SHINY
REFLECTS LIGHT
SMOOTH
EVEN SURFACE
ROUGH
UNEVEN SURFACE
Some other properties of materials
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Light - It doesn’t weigh much
Heavy – It weighs a lot
Coloured – Has colour
Magnetic – It’s attracted to magnets
Bendy - Flexible
Malleable – It can be shaped easily
Conductor – It allows heat or electricity to pass through
Insulator – It doesn’t allow heat or electricity
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Let’s try!