Everyday materials · Year 5
An object is a thing; a material is what it is made of. A spoon can be made of metal, wood or plastic. Each material has properties – hard or soft, stiff or bendy, waterproof or absorbent, see-through or not – and we choose materials whose properties suit the job.
Key facts
- Common materials: wood, metal, plastic, glass, fabric, paper, rubber, rock, brick and clay.
- Properties include hard or soft, stiff or bendy, stretchy, rough or smooth, shiny or dull, waterproof or absorbent, transparent or opaque, strong or weak.
- We choose a material for its properties: glass for windows (transparent), rubber for wellies (waterproof and bendy), fabric for towels (absorbent).
- Some solid objects can change shape by squashing, bending, twisting or stretching.
- Metals are good conductors of heat and electricity. Plastic, wood, rubber and glass are insulators.
- Only some metals are magnetic: iron, nickel and cobalt, and steel (which is mostly iron). Aluminium, copper and gold are not.