Offline Classroom Activities — Science 5
Term 1 · Week 3 · CG Quarter 1, competency 3 · Shape, volume and the three states
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.
Every activity here is a demonstration the learner performs, not one they watch. The competency is about a property that only shows itself when something is moved from one container to another, and there is no way to see that from a seat.
Activity 1 — The Awkward Tray (individual)
| Time | 25 minutes |
| Materials | A tray or a sheet of paper per pair, carrying six samples: a sponge, a rubber band, sand, cooking oil in a lidded jar, powdered milk, a stone |
| Preparation | Twenty minutes once, and the tray is reusable all year. Small screw-top jars from the canteen work for the oil. |
Instructions
- Draw a table with four columns: Sample · Keeps its shape? · Keeps its space? · State.
- For each sample, ask the two questions. Move it, pour it, or squeeze it before you answer.
- Fill in the fourth column from the first two, not from memory.
- In the last row, write the one sample you are least sure about and say why.
Why the tray is stacked
Five of the six are solids and only one is a liquid, which is deliberate. A learner sorting by hardness gets the sponge and the rubber band wrong; a learner sorting by pouring gets the sand and the powdered milk wrong. A learner using the two questions gets all six.
Differentiation
| One step down | Three samples: stone, oil, sand. The contrast is the whole lesson and the table is half the length. |
| One step up | Add a seventh: a small ball of dough or a lump of toothpaste on a saucer. There is no clean answer, and saying why the questions stop working is worth more than a seventh correct row. |
Assessment
Not a percentage. Read the fourth column and the last row.
| Seen | What it means |
|---|---|
| All six correct and the uncertain row names a real difficulty | Full understanding, and honest about its edge |
| All six correct, uncertain row blank | Probably correct; ask one aloud on Monday |
| Sponge or rubber band marked liquid | Hardness is being used as the test. Remediation sheet |
| Sand or powdered milk marked liquid | Pouring is being used as the test. §C2 of the lesson plan, again, with one grain |
Activity 2 — Five Containers, One Cup of Water (individual)
| Time | 20 minutes |
| Materials | Five containers of different shapes per group — cut bottles, tins, a cup, a bowl, a jar; water; a marker |
| Preparation | Ten minutes: cut and wash the bottles. Mark one cup as the starting measure. |
Instructions
- Fill the marked cup with water. Draw its shape.
- Pour it into the second container. Draw the shape.
- Keep going through all five. Draw each one.
- Pour it back into the first cup. Is it up to the mark?
- Write two sentences: one about what changed, one about what did not.
The point, and the honest caveat
The water comes back to almost the mark, not exactly — a little wets the sides of each container. Say so before anybody notices, because a learner who spots the shortfall and is told to ignore it learns that the demonstration matters more than the observation.
The right thing to say is: "Some is left on the walls each time. That is a real loss and it is small. The point is that the shape changed five times and the amount changed almost not at all."
Differentiation
| One step down | Three containers, and the teacher pours. The learner draws and answers step 5. |
| One step up | Predict how much will be missing after five pours, then check. That is a measurement question and it needs a unit. |
Assessment
Look at the two sentences in step 5. The word volume or amount must appear in the second one. A learner who writes "nothing changed" has missed the shape; a learner who writes "everything changed" has missed the volume.
Activity 3 — The Glass That Will Not Fill (individual)
| Time | 15 minutes |
| Materials | A clear glass or cut bottle, a basin of water, a small piece of paper or tissue |
| Preparation | Five minutes: fill the basin. |
Instructions
- Push a piece of dry paper into the bottom of the glass so it stays there.
- Predict, in writing: if I push this glass straight down into the water, upside down, will the paper get wet?
- Push the glass straight down, mouth first, all the way. Hold it.
- Lift it straight out. Check the paper.
- Now tip the glass while it is under water. Watch what escapes.
What happens, and why it settles the argument
The paper stays dry. Something is already in the glass and it will not let the water in. When the glass is tipped, that something comes out as bubbles — visibly, in a quantity you can see.
This is the demonstration to use for a learner who did not accept the balloon balance. The balance argues that air has mass; this one shows that air takes up space, and matter is defined as having both.
Differentiation
| One step down | The teacher does it once and the learner writes only the prediction and what happened. |
| One step up | Push the glass down at an angle instead of straight, and explain the difference. Then explain why a diver's bell works. |
Assessment
Three piles: predicted dry and gave air as the reason · predicted wet, then explained it correctly afterwards · predicted wet and still cannot say why it stayed dry.
The middle pile is the largest and it is the successful one. Changing your mind because of something you saw is the whole of this activity.
Activity 4 — The Sorting 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 samples below and cut them up, one set per group. Reusable all year. |
The twelve samples
| Sample | State | Why it is on the list |
|---|---|---|
| A stone | Solid | The easy anchor |
| Water in a bottle | Liquid | The easy anchor |
| The air in a balloon | Gas | The easy anchor |
| Sand | Solid | It pours |
| Salt | Solid | It pours |
| Powdered milk | Solid | It pours |
| A kitchen sponge | Solid | It squashes |
| A rubber band | Solid | It stretches |
| Honey | Liquid | It is slow |
| Cooking oil | Liquid | It is thick |
| Steam above a pot | Gas | You can see the wrong part of it |
| Smoke from a fire | Gas with solids in it | There is no clean answer |
Roles — everybody has one
| Role | What they do | How many |
|---|---|---|
| Judge | The only one who may place a slip on a pile | 1 |
| Shape Counsel | Answers only the first question: does it keep its own shape? | 1 |
| Space Counsel | Answers only the second: does it keep its own space? | 1 |
| Recorder | Writes the state and the deciding question for each | 1 |
| Challenger | Must challenge at least three decisions, 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 logs only the challenges and their outcomes.
Instructions
- Shuffle the twelve slips. Draw one at a time.
- Shape Counsel answers first. Space Counsel answers second. Always in that order.
- The Judge names the state from the two answers, not from what the thing is.
- The Recorder writes the state and which question decided it.
- The Challenger stops the Judge at least three times and asks for the reason again.
- At the end, count how many the whole group agreed on, and read out the last one.
The point of the game
Splitting the two questions between two people is the whole design. A single learner asks both at once and answers from what the sample is; two people are forced to answer them separately, and that is exactly the discipline the competency describes.
Say this at the end: "Smoke has no clean answer, and that is not a fault in the smoke. Every definition has an edge, and finding it is science rather than a failure of the definition."
Rubric — 12 marks
| Criterion | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Correct states | 11 or 12 | 8 to 10 | 5 to 7 | Fewer than 5 |
| Deciding question recorded | Every slip has one | Most do | Some do | None |
| Challenges | Three or more, each answered | Two | One | None |
| Everybody worked | All six spoke | Five | Four | Three or fewer |
Activity 5 — Weighing the Air (group)
| Time | 30 minutes |
| Group size | 5 — works at 4 or 6 |
| Materials | Two identical balloons or small plastic bags per group; a straight stick or ruler; string; a place to hang it |
| Preparation | Fifteen minutes: cut string, and find five places in the room a stick can hang freely — a window catch, a door handle, the back of a chair. |
Roles — everybody has one
| Role | What they do | How many |
|---|---|---|
| Balancer | Hangs the stick and adjusts until it is level. Nothing may proceed until it is | 1 |
| Inflater | Blows up one balloon and ties it. Same person both trials | 1 |
| Predictor | Writes the group's prediction and the reason before anything is blown up | 1 |
| Observer | Says out loud what happens, in words the Recorder can write down | 1 |
| Recorder | Writes the prediction, the observation, and whether they matched | 1 |
With four, the Observer and the Recorder combine. With six, add a Repeater who runs the whole thing a second time with the other balloon inflated — and that is the best version, because it tests whether the result was the air or the balloon.
Instructions
- Hang the stick. Tie one empty balloon to each end. Balance it.
- The Predictor writes the prediction and the reason. No prediction, no inflating.
- Take one balloon off, blow it up, tie it, hang it back in the same place.
- Observe. Record.
- Swap: deflate that one, inflate the other, and run it again. Does the same side go down, or does the inflated side?
- Write one sentence answering: does air have mass?
Why step 5 matters more than step 3
Step 3 alone proves nothing — the balloon might just be heavier when stretched, or the string might be uneven. Step 5 is the control, and it is the first time in this year's curriculum a class has run one. The guide's Quarter 1 performance task is do gases have weight?, and this activity is that task in miniature.
Rubric — 12 marks
| Criterion | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prediction before the event | Written with a reason, before inflating | Written before, no reason | Written after | None |
| Both trials run | Both, with the outcome of each recorded | Both, one recorded | One only | None |
| The conclusion | Answers the question and points at the evidence for it | Answers the question | States a belief | Absent |
| Everybody worked | All five roles carried out | Four | Three | Two or fewer |
If there is no balloon, no stick and no basin
- No balloons — plastic bags, closed by twisting the neck, do everything a balloon does here and are easier to find.
- No stick — a ruler, a broom handle, or a straight twig. The string does the work.
- No basin — a bucket, a large tin, or a plastic bin. Activity 3 needs only enough depth to submerge a glass.
- No measuring container for Activity 2 — a cut bottle with a line drawn on it is a measure. Name the line — one bottle — and it becomes a unit, which is what competency 8 is asking for anyway.
Part of the E-turo MATATAG artifact set. Companion files:
syllabus.md · lesson-plan.md ·
lesson-plan-ilaw.md · worksheet.html