Offline Classroom Activities — Science 4
Term 1 · Week 3 · CG Quarter 1, competency 3 · Physical and chemical properties
Three individual and two group activities. No electricity, nothing to buy, no laboratory equipment. All five are written for a room of 45 or more with fixed desks.
Nothing here is lit. A Grade 4 class does not need to burn anything to learn what burning is, and the performance standard's safe-handling line is the reason. Rust, rot and fizz do the same work, take no supervision, and cannot go wrong.
Activity 1 — Three Jars on the Windowsill (individual)
| Time | 20 minutes to set up, then 3 minutes a day for a week |
| Materials | Three clear containers — cut bottles will do; water; a spoon of sugar; a spoon of salt; a spoon of chalk dust or soil |
| Preparation | Ten minutes: cut three bottles to the same height. Write the three labels. |
Instructions
- Put the same amount of water in each container.
- Stir sugar into the first, salt into the second, chalk dust into the third.
- Draw what each looks like now. Write one sentence for each.
- Leave all three on the windowsill for a week.
- Every day, draw the water line and write one sentence.
- On the last day, answer: which of the three came back?
What happens, and why it is the point
The sugar and the salt come back as the water evaporates — visibly, in crystals. The chalk dust was never dissolved at all; it settled on day one. Nothing new was made in any of the three, and the learner who called dissolving a chemical change on Monday can see why by Friday.
Differentiation
| One step down | Two containers, sugar and chalk dust. The contrast is starker and the daily entry is one sentence, not two. |
| One step up | Add a fourth: a spoon of vinegar with a pinch of baking soda. Something is made there. Ask what the difference is, and what evidence they are using. |
Assessment
Not a percentage. Read the five daily entries and count how many name something observed rather than something concluded.
| Seen | What it means |
|---|---|
| Four or five entries describe what was visible | The observation habit is there |
| Entries repeat "nothing happened" | Ask them to draw the water line instead of writing. It moves every day |
| Entries state the conclusion on day one | The prediction has closed the investigation. Worth a private word |
Activity 2 — What Is the Same, What Is Different (individual)
| Time | 25 minutes |
| Materials | The two nail jars from Day 1; paper and pencil |
| Preparation | None — the jars are already there. |
Instructions
- Draw the two jars.
- List everything that is the same about them. Aim for five.
- List everything that is different. There should be exactly one.
- If you found more than one difference, fix the investigation: change the jars so only one thing differs.
- Write one sentence saying why that matters.
Why this is worth a whole session
Most classes find three or four differences, not one: different amounts of light, different jar sizes, one lid on and one off. Each of those is a second explanation for whatever happens, and until they are removed the investigation cannot answer the question it was set up to answer.
This is Grade 6's fair-test competency arriving two years early, through a door the learner opened themselves.
Differentiation
| One step down | The teacher lists five things and the learner ticks same or different. |
| One step up | Set up a third jar that isolates a different variable — boiled and sealed water, which has much less air — and predict it. |
Assessment
| Seen | What it means |
|---|---|
| Finds more than one difference and says how to remove them | Full understanding of a controlled comparison |
| Finds them but does not connect them to the conclusion | Ask: if the nail rusts, how will you know it was the water? |
| Finds only "one has water" | The obvious difference is the intended one. Ask about light, air and jar size |
Activity 3 — The Label Hunt (individual)
| Time | 15 minutes in class, plus an overnight collection |
| Materials | Empty packets, cartons and bottles from home and the canteen |
| Preparation | Ask the class the day before to bring one clean, empty container each. |
Instructions
- Read the words on your container. Copy out two claims it makes.
- For each one, decide: is this a description — something you could check — or an argument, something meant to persuade?
- Underline any use of the word chemical, natural, pure or fresh.
- Write one sentence saying what you think the packet is trying to make you believe.
The teacher's line, when the argument starts
"You are not being asked whether the packet is lying. You are being asked whether the sentence is the kind of sentence that could be checked."
Contains 250 mL can be checked. Made with love cannot. No chemicals is the interesting one: it is written like a description and behaves like an argument.
Differentiation
| One step down | The teacher supplies four written claims on the board. The learner sorts them into two columns. |
| One step up | Rewrite one of the packet's arguments as a description that would be true. |
Assessment
Three piles: sorted both correctly and gave reasons · sorted correctly, no reasons · sorted by whether they liked the product. The third pile is the one to work with; it is not a science problem yet, and it will become one.
Activity 4 — The Burial (group)
| Time | 30 minutes to set up in Week 3; 20 minutes to dig up in Week 6 |
| Group size | 5 — works at 4 or 6, see below |
| Materials | A patch of soil or a large tin of soil per group; six samples per group — banana peel, paper, cloth, plastic sachet, foil, a leaf; string and sticks to mark positions |
| Preparation | Fifteen minutes: collect six samples per group, cut to a similar size. Mark out the patch. |
Roles — everybody has one
| Role | What they do | How many |
|---|---|---|
| Recorder | Draws the map: which sample is buried where, and how deep | 1 |
| Measurer | Measures each sample before burial — length and width, with units | 1 |
| Burier | Places each sample at the same depth. Same depth is the whole point | 1 |
| Marker | Labels each position so it can be found in three weeks | 1 |
| Predictor | Writes the group's prediction for each sample and the reason | 1 |
With four, the Marker and the Burier combine. With six, add a Checker who must agree every measurement before it is written — the best version of this activity.
Instructions
- Measure each of the six samples. Record with units.
- Predict for each: will it still be there in three weeks? Write the reason, not just the answer.
- Bury all six at the same depth, spaced apart, and map them.
- Mark the positions clearly enough that another group could find them.
- In Week 6, dig them up, measure again, and compare with the prediction.
The answers, three weeks later
| Sample | What is usually found | The property |
|---|---|---|
| Banana peel | Gone, or nearly | Biodegradable |
| Leaf | Mostly gone, skeleton left | Biodegradable |
| Paper | Soft, torn, partly gone | Biodegradable |
| Cloth (cotton) | Weakened, discoloured, still there | Biodegradable but slower |
| Plastic sachet | Unchanged | Not biodegradable |
| Foil | Dull, maybe pitted; still there | Degradable slowly, not biodegradable |
Foil is the useful one. It changes without rotting, which separates degradable from biodegradable better than any definition.
Rubric — 12 marks
| Criterion | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measurement before burial | All six, with units | Four or five | Two or three | None, or no units |
| Predictions with reasons | All six have a reason, not just an answer | Most do | One or two | Answers only |
| The map | Another group could find all six from it | Most could be found | Positions vague | No map |
| Everybody worked | All five roles carried out | Four | Three | Two or fewer |
Activity 5 — The Property Court (group)
| Time | 30 minutes |
| Group size | 6 — works at 5 or 7 |
| Materials | Twelve slips per group, cut from one sheet; pencil |
| Preparation | Fifteen minutes: write the twelve statements below and cut them up, one set per group. Reusable all year. |
The twelve statements
| Statement | Physical or chemical |
|---|---|
| This wood is 2 metres long. | Physical |
| This wood floats. | Physical |
| This wood is rough. | Physical |
| This wood catches fire easily. | Chemical |
| This wood rots when left in the rain. | Chemical |
| This iron gate is painted green. | Physical |
| This iron gate rusts where the paint is chipped. | Chemical |
| This iron gate is heavy. | Physical |
| This sachet is transparent. | Physical |
| This sachet does not rot in the ground. | Chemical |
| This sachet melts when it is heated. | Physical |
| This sachet gives off black smoke when burned. | Chemical |
The three objects each appear four times, on purpose. A group sorting by object rather than by statement gets half of them wrong and finds out why.
Roles — everybody has one
| Role | What they do | How many |
|---|---|---|
| Judge | The only one who may place a slip on a pile | 1 |
| Counsel for Looking | Argues that the statement can be checked today | 1 |
| Counsel for Waiting | Argues that you would have to let something happen | 1 |
| Recorder | Writes each decision and one reason | 1 |
| Challenger | Must challenge at least three decisions during the game, whether or not they disagree | 1 |
| Timekeeper | Ninety seconds per slip, no extensions | 1 |
With five, the Judge keeps time. With seven, add a Second Recorder who writes only the challenges and what happened to them.
Instructions
- Shuffle the twelve slips. Draw one at a time.
- Each counsel gets fifteen seconds.
- The Challenger may stop the Judge and demand a better reason. They must do this at least three times.
- The Recorder writes the decision and one reason.
- At the end, count: how many of the twelve did the whole group agree on?
The point of the game
The Challenger's job is the lesson. Being made to challenge a decision you agree with is the only way most learners ever practise asking how do you know without it being an accusation.
Say this at the end: "The three objects were each here four times. If you sorted by the object, you got half of them wrong. The statement is what you sort, not the thing."
Rubric — 12 marks
| Criterion | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Correct classification | 11 or 12 | 8 to 10 | 5 to 7 | Fewer than 5 |
| Quality of reasons | Every reason names looking or waiting | Most do | Some do | Nothing recorded |
| Challenges | Three or more, each answered | Two | One | None |
| Everybody worked | All six spoke | Five | Four | Three or fewer |
If the school has no jars, no soil patch, and no packets
Every activity here has a fallback, and none of them costs anything.
- No jars — two nails wrapped in cloth, one kept damp, one kept dry, in two corners of the room.
- No soil patch — a large tin, a plastic basin, or a corner of the school garden shared between six groups, with each group's samples on a labelled string.
- No packets — the twelve statements in Activity 5 need only a sheet of paper, and Activity 3 can use the class's own school bags: which claims does a bag make about itself, and which of them could be checked?
Part of the E-turo MATATAG artifact set. Companion files:
syllabus.md · lesson-plan.md ·
lesson-plan-ilaw.md · worksheet.html