Step 24 Lesson 1

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Marvellous Materials

Objectives

To follow instructions safely when doing practical work.

Use given equipment appropriately.

Resources

Water | Plastic cups | Food colouring – red, blue and yellow | Kitchen towel |  Recording device | Other types of paper – cartridge, card, tracing, newspaper, magazine, etc

Vocabulary

absorbent | absorbs | observe | observation

Today's Lesson

Introduction

Tell your student that during this step you will be learning more about materials (paper and water) and how they can be changed when we add things to them.

Practical

Ask your student to help you to follow the instructions below. You might want to read them out loud and ask your student to carry out the steps themselves, with as much support as necessary.

1. Put 2-3 drops of red food colouring into one cup and 2-3 drops of blue food colouring into another. Fill up each cup with water. [Note that different food colouring brands vary in strength, so be guided by the instructions on the bottles. Whatever amount you use of one colour, use the same of the other.]
2. Take 1-2 sheets of kitchen towel and roll lengthways into a tube.
3. Bend the paper in half and dip one end into the blue, and one end into the red coloured water.
4. Watch what happens as the colours travel up the paper.
5. Ask: ‘What can you see happening? What happens to the colours? What happens to the paper? What colour can you see where the blue and red meet?’

New Learning

Explain that the colours travel because the paper is absorbent (it sucks up the water), just like we discovered with materials that were non-waterproof. The colour travels with the water, making the paper change from white to red or blue.

Explain that colours mix when they are joined together: red and blue make purple.

Then experiment with what happens with mixing the primary colours in other combinations:

• red with yellow (makes orange, but allow your student to discover this without telling them).
• blue with yellow (makes green, but again allow your student to discover this for themselves).

Note: the three primary colours are red, blue and yellow.

Apply

In the second part of the lesson, repeat the steps using different types of paper. This will reinforce learning about absorbency and the properties of different types of paper.

Ask your student to make a prediction before they dip the different papers into the coloured liquid.

Ask:

• ‘How well did that type of paper absorb the water?’
• ‘What did we see? What do we now know?’

Ask your student to record their findings by filling in a simple chart similar to the one below: