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2nd grade · Science · Unit 3 of 7

Changing Materials

Cut, bend, mix, cook and burn

What your child practices

Ways to change materials: cutting, bending, mixing, warming and cooling keep the same material, while cooking, burning and rusting make something new.

Alaska content standards learning standard: 2-PS1-1; 2-PS1-4 · describing materials and changes that can or cannot be reversed

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Cutting, bending, melting and freezing change size, shape or state. It is still the same material.
  2. Cooking, burning and rusting make a new material.
  3. Ask: can it go back the way it was?

Example: Toasting bread: same material or a new one? Toast can't turn back into soft bread. Heat made something new. Answer: a new one

Changing Materials in Alaska

In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 3 of 7 in 2nd grade Science, after Water World and before Mixtures & Materials.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which one is a way of changing material by mixing?

    • 🥣stirring flour, eggs and milk into batter
    • 🎀cutting a ribbon
    • 👕folding a shirt

  2. Question 2

    Which is a chemical change?

    • 🧊ice melting
    • 🕯️a candle wick burning
    • 📄paper being torn

  3. Question 3

    A chocolate bar melts in a warm car, then cools at home. Is it still chocolate?

    🍫
    • no, it is now plastic
    • no, it is now bread
    • yes, it is still chocolate

  4. Question 4

    Which one changes a material by cooling it?

    • 🍞toasting bread
    • 🍎cutting an apple
    • 🧊putting juice in the freezer

  5. Question 5

    Same material or a new one? Tap an item, then tap its basket.

    Sort into: ✂️ same material · 🔥 new material made

    • ⚪squish clay into a ball
    • 🎂bake a cake
    • 🥕chop carrots
    • ✈️fold a paper plane
    • 🔥burn wood in a campfire
    • 🍳fry an egg

  6. Question 6

    A melted crayon cools down. What happens?

    • 💧it stays a liquid forever
    • 📄it turns into paper
    • 🖍️it becomes solid again

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