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Physical ScienceMaterialsYear 2 Science

Materials: natural or made, and how they bend and break

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What this lesson covers

  • Every material takes up space, even air
  • Natural materials and manufactured materials
  • How different materials act when bent, stretched or handled
  • Materials broken into small pieces are still the same material
  • Predicting, testing, and putting results in a table
Key idea

Materials take up space

  • Everything is made of materials, and every material takes up space.
  • Drop a rock into a cup of water and the water level goes up, because the rock needs room.
  • Air is a material too. Blow up a balloon and it gets bigger, because the air inside takes up space.
Two cups with the same water: without a rock the water is low; with a rock dropped in, the water level is higher
Key idea

Natural or manufactured?

  • A natural material comes from plants, animals or the ground.
  • A manufactured material is made by people, often from natural ones.
  • Paper is made from wood. Glass is made from sand. Bricks are made from baked clay.
NaturalManufactured
WoodPaper and cardboard
RockBrick
SandGlass
WoolPlastic
Worked example

Sorting four materials

  • Is each one natural or manufactured: a wool jersey, a plastic bottle, a brick, a pebble?
  1. Wool: grows on sheep, so naturalfrom an animal
  2. Plastic: made in a factory, so manufacturedmade by people
  3. Brick: clay baked by people, so manufacturedchanged by people
  4. Pebble: found on a beach, so naturalfrom the ground
  5. Natural: wool, pebble. Manufactured: plastic, brick
Key idea

Try it: natural or manufactured?

Key idea

Bend, stretch, squash

  • Materials act in different ways when you handle them.
  • Rubber stretches, then springs back to its shape.
  • Paper bends and folds easily, and it tears if you pull hard.
  • Wood bends a little, then snaps if you push too far.
  • Glass, brick and rock do not bend. If you push too hard, they crack.
Worked example

Predict, then test

  • Room 7 predicted what 5 materials would do when bent, then tested each one gently and filled in a table.
  • Each row is one material. Each column is one thing they wrote down.
MaterialWe predictedWhat happened
Rubber bandStretchesStretched and sprang back
Paper stripBendsBent and folded
Ice block stickBendsBent a little, then snapped
Plastic rulerSnapsBent and sprang back
CardboardStays stiffBent and made a crease
  1. Rubber band and paper strip: as predictedright
  2. Ice block stick: it bent first, then snappedpartly right
  3. Plastic ruler and cardboard: not as predictedwrong
  4. The test, not the guess, shows what a material really does
Key idea

Try it: what happened when it bent?

Key idea

Breaking into smaller pieces

  • Materials can be cut, broken or worn down into smaller pieces.
  • The small pieces are still the same material.
  • Sand is rock that waves and wind have worn into tiny grains over a very long time.
  • Breadcrumbs are still bread. Broken glass is still glass, and its small pieces are sharp.
A big rock, then a few pebbles, then many grains of sand, joined by arrows labelled waves and wind; the pieces get smaller but are still rock

Common mistakes

  • Air is nothing, so it does not take up space.
    Air is a material; a balloon gets bigger as you blow air in because the air takes up space.
  • Paper is natural because it comes from trees.
    Paper is made from wood by people in a factory, so it is manufactured.
  • When rock turns into sand, the rock is gone.
    The rock is still there as tiny grains; breaking a material makes smaller pieces of the same stuff.
Try it at home

A bend and stretch test

You need: a rubber band, a strip of paper, an ice block stick, a piece of tinfoil, paper and a pencil

  1. Draw a table with three columns: Material, I predict, What happened.
  2. For each material, write what you think it will do when you bend it.
  3. Bend or stretch each one gently with both hands.
  4. Write what happened in the last column.
  5. Look for this: which ones sprang back, which stayed bent, and which broke?

Safety: Ask an adult to help, and bend things below your face and pointing away from people, because a snapping stick or flicked rubber band can hit an eye.

Your turn

1

Is wool natural or manufactured?

2

Is a brick natural or manufactured?

3

In Room 7's test, what happened to the ice block stick?

4

You crush a cracker into crumbs. Are the crumbs still cracker?

5

Does the air in a balloon take up space?

Show answer

1. Natural, because it grows on sheep. 2. Manufactured, because people bake clay to make it. 3. It bent a little, then snapped. 4. Yes, they are smaller pieces of the same cracker. 5. Yes, which is why the balloon gets bigger.

Summary

Recap

  • Every material takes up space, even air.
  • Natural materials come from plants, animals or the ground; manufactured materials are made by people.
  • Materials act differently when bent or stretched: some spring back, some stay bent, some break.
  • Broken pieces are still the same material.
  • Predict, test, and record the results in a table.
Maths

The maths behind it

Year 2 MathsCollecting Data and Making Tally Charts
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