Lesson Exemplar — Science 4
Term 1 · Week 3 · Day 1 · Domain: Materials
This is one day. For the whole of Week 3 in the format DepEd prescribes for filing, see
lesson-plan-ilaw.md.
| Learning Area | Science |
| Grade Level | Grade 4 |
| Term | Term 1, Week 3 |
| CG source | Quarter 1, competency 3 (p. 33) |
| Lesson Title | What It Can Do, Not Just What It Looks Like |
| Duration | 45 minutes |
| Medium of instruction | English |
| Format | MATATAG Lesson Exemplar (DepEd) — not ILAW, see above |
I. CURRICULUM CONTENT, STANDARDS, AND LESSON COMPETENCIES
A. Content Standards
Quoted from the MATATAG Science Curriculum Guide (DepEd, August 2023, p. 33), Grade 4 Quarter 1, content standard 2:
Chemical properties of materials determine their uses.
B. Performance Standards
By the end of the Quarter, learners describe chemical properties of materials and changes to them. They demonstrate an understanding that science processes can solve everyday problems and use creativity and determination to provide examples.
C. Learning Competency
CG Quarter 1, competency 3:
describe the chemical properties of materials, such as they can be burnt, react with other materials, or are degradable or biodegradable.
By the end of the session, learners can:
- sort a statement about a material into physical property or chemical property, and say how they decided;
- name the four chemical properties the curriculum lists, with a local example of each;
- give at least two pieces of evidence that a new material has been made; and
- explain why "contains no chemicals" cannot be true of anything.
D. Key Vocabulary
| Word | Meaning as used in this lesson |
|---|---|
| Physical property | What a material is like. Found out by looking, feeling or measuring. |
| Chemical property | What a material can become. Found out by letting it happen. |
| Degradable | Breaks down over time. Iron rusts away; gold does not. |
| Biodegradable | Broken down by living things. A banana peel rots; a plastic bag does not. |
| React | Two materials meet and a new material appears. |
The class sentence, said together in §D and printed on the wall chart: "A physical property you can see. A chemical property you have to wait for."
E. Integration Across Learning Areas
| Area | How it appears |
|---|---|
| Araling Panlipunan | Waste segregation in the barangay is a decision made from chemical properties, not from how a thing looks. |
| Mathematics | The nails are measured and the observations dated — a table with a time column, which is Grade 4 Quarter 4 data handling. |
| EPP | Which material to use for a repair is a chemical-property question: iron rusts, galvanised iron rusts more slowly, plastic does not rust and cannot take heat. |
| English | The difference between describing and claiming — the label on the juice carton is an argument, not a description. |
II. MATERIALS
Needed — no cost. Two identical iron nails; two glasses or empty jars; water; a date label. Chalk and a board. If nails are not available: two slices of the same banana, one on a plate and one in a sealed plastic bag.
Not used: a bunsen burner, a chemical set, or anything that has to be lit. Nothing in this lesson is burned in the room. The burning examples are recalled from what learners have already seen, which is safer and just as good.
In addition. slides.html slides 1–10 ·
worksheet.html · game.html Rounds 1–2 ·
wall-chart.html
III. TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCEDURE
A. Activating Prior Knowledge · 6 minutes
Hold up the two nails. Say: "These came out of the same box. Tell me three things you can see about them."
Take answers. Write each on the board. Expect grey, hard, shiny, pointed, about five centimetres.
Now put one nail in a dry jar and one in a jar of water, in front of the class. Label both with today's date.
Say: "What will be different in one week?"
Take three predictions and write the predictor's name next to each. Do not say whether any is right.
Why the names go on the board. A prediction with a name attached is a claim somebody owns, and owning it is what makes Friday interesting. An anonymous prediction is a guess nobody has to revisit.
B. Establishing Lesson Purpose · 4 minutes
Point at the two lists — the three things they could see, and the three predictions.
Say: "Everything in the first list, you knew by looking. Nothing in the second list can be known by looking. Today is about that difference, and it has a name."
Show slides 1–3. State the purpose plainly: "By the end of today you will be able to sort any fact about a material into one of two kinds, and say which one it is."
C. Developing and Deepening Understanding · 24 minutes
C1 · The two columns · 7 minutes
Draw two columns. Head them PHYSICAL PROPERTY and CHEMICAL PROPERTY. Slide 4.
Move the board lists into the columns, asking each time: "Could you find this out today, or would you have to wait?"
Then give the four the curriculum names — slide 5:
| Chemical property | A local example |
|---|---|
| Can it be burnt? | Paper, wood, dried coconut husk |
| Does it react with other materials? | Vinegar poured on baking soda |
| Is it degradable? | An iron gate rusting through in five years |
| Is it biodegradable? | Banana peel in three weeks; a plastic sachet in decades |
C2 · How you know a new material was made · 8 minutes
Slide 6. Give the four signs, then the test that beats all four.
Say: "A colour change that will not wash off. Bubbles or smoke. Heat or light given off. A solid appearing in a clear liquid. And the one that settles it — can you get the old material back?"
Run four quick cases on fingers, one and two:
| Case | Answer | The reasoning to draw out |
|---|---|---|
| Ice melting in a glass | Physical | Freeze it and the ice is back |
| A match burning | Chemical | Ash and smoke; nothing turns them back into a match |
| Bending a spoon | Physical | Bend it back |
| Milk going sour | Chemical | No fridge on earth un-sours milk |
Sugar dissolving is the one to save for last — see the misconceptions table. Most of the class will call it chemical because the sugar "disappears". Boil a spoonful of sugar water dry at home and it comes back; say that, and say you cannot demonstrate it in 45 minutes.
C3 · The trap · 9 minutes
Write on the board: "THIS JUICE CONTAINS NO CHEMICALS."
Ask: "Is that true?"
Let the argument run for a full three minutes. Somebody will defend the label; that is useful, not a problem.
Then ask the question that settles it: "What is water made of?"
Slide 7 and 8. Say: "Water is a chemical. Salt is a chemical. Sugar is a chemical. Everything you have ever eaten is made of chemicals. The word tells you what something is made of. It does not tell you where it came from, and it does not tell you whether it is safe."
Finish with the honest reading: "What is the label trying to say?" Usually: nothing was added that we have not named. That is a reasonable thing to want and a badly worded way to say it.
D. Making Generalisations · 7 minutes
Slides 9–10. Say the class sentence together, twice:
"A physical property you can see. A chemical property you have to wait for."
Then the local turn — say: "Why is a roof painted every few years?"
Draw it out: rust needs iron, air and water together. Paint keeps two of them away from the third, so the chemical change cannot happen. That is a chemical property being used, not just described — which is the content standard word for word.
Hand out worksheet.html.
IV. EVALUATING LEARNING
A. Assessment · 4 minutes
Exit ticket, one slip per learner, three lines:
- Write one physical property and one chemical property of your own shoe.
- A shop bag says BIODEGRADABLE. Say in one sentence what that promises.
- You predicted something about the nails. What would have to happen for you to change your mind?
| Item | What a good answer looks like | What a wrong answer tells you |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black and soft / it burns or the rubber rots | Two physical properties means the second column has not landed |
| 2 | It will break down in the ground, by itself, over time | "It can be recycled" — the two are being treated as one word |
| 3 | Any concrete observation: if the dry nail rusts too | "Nothing" — the prediction is being held as a preference, not a claim |
Item 3 is the one that reads. Items 1 and 2 can be answered from the wall chart.
B. Teacher Reflection
Answer after the class, not before:
- How many put dissolving in the chemical column? If more than half, spend ten minutes of Day 2 on it — it is the commonest wrong answer in this whole quarter.
- Who argued for the juice label? That learner is reasoning from everyday language, which is a strength. Use them on Day 3.
- Did anybody ask what rust is made of? That question is Grade 8 and it deserves a name.
C. Enrichment and Remediation
| Who | What |
|---|---|
| Sorting by guesswork rather than by the test | worksheet-remediation.html tasks 1–2 — they start from changes the learner has watched, before any of the words |
| Ready to move on | Set up a third jar: a nail in boiled water that has been sealed, which has much less air. Ask them to predict, and to say what makes it a fair comparison |
| Not yet past the "chemical = artificial" idea | game.html Round 3 is given over entirely to it |
Anticipated Misconceptions
| # | The misconception | Where it shows | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dissolving is a chemical change — "the sugar disappeared" | §C2, worksheet C | Ask where the sugar went. Taste the water. Boiling it dry brings the sugar back, so nothing new was made |
| 2 | "Chemical" means artificial or dangerous | §C3, exit ticket 2 | Ask what water is made of. This is a language problem before it is a science problem, and it will recur all year |
| 3 | Biodegradable and recyclable mean the same thing | §IV item 2 | One is a property of the material; the other is about what a factory can do with it. A glass bottle is recyclable and not biodegradable |
| 4 | If it changed, it must be chemical — melting, bending, tearing | §C1 | Apply the one test: can you get the old material back? Bend the spoon back in front of them |
| 5 | Burning is reversible because the ash is still there | §C2 | Ash is not paper. Ask them to write on it |
| 6 | Not rusting is not a chemical property — "gold does nothing" | Game Round 1 | A chemical property can be about what a material will not do. That is exactly why gold is used for jewellery kept for generations |
| 7 | Colour is always physical | Worksheet A | The colour a thing is — physical. A colour change that will not wash off — evidence of a chemical change. The difference is whether it can be undone |
If There Is No Electricity
Nothing in this lesson needs it. Two nails, two jars, water and a board are the whole apparatus, and the slides only carry what §III already says.
If there are no jars: two nails wrapped in cloth, one kept damp and one kept dry, work as well and take up less space. If there are no nails: two slices of the same banana, one on a plate and one sealed in a bag, show the same thing faster and are easier to lose to the class's appetite — label them.
Part of the E-turo MATATAG artifact set. Companion files:
syllabus.md · lesson-plan-ilaw.md ·
assessment.md · offline-activities.md