Lower elementary introduction to matter and the three states of matter.

1. Matter
(At about the 2nd grade level)
What is matter?
By Moira Whitehouse, PhD

2. Matter includes everything
around us--
• our couch, our bed, our
computer
• our food and our drinks
• our family and our dog or
cat

3. • the grass and the trees
• the Sun and the Moon
• all the planets
• everything in our Universe

4. Yes!
Everything
Everything
Everything

5. Matter on Earth is usually in
one of three states.

6. solids

7. We know when matter is a solid
because solids:
• Keep their shape unless they are broken
• Do not flow or pour

8. liquids

9. We can tell when matter is a liquid because
liquids:
• Do not keep their own shape; they take the
shape of the container they are in.

10. And...liquids flow or pour.
Oil being
poured
on a
salad

11. Then what about sand,
sugar and salt? Don’t
they pour, flow and
take the shape of the
container they are in?

12. If you magnify
sand or sugar,
you can see
that they are
not liquids.
Sand, salt, and
sugar are made
up of very small
particles that
have a definite
shape .

13. Then there is that third state of matter:
gas
Child blowing
air (a gas) into
a balloon.

14. A balloon or a bubble are just
containers that hold a gas. For us
that gas is usually air.

15. There are other gases besides the
gases in air. These balloons
contain a gas called helium which
is lighter than air.

16. Air like all gases
takes the shape of
its container
and expands to fill
its container.

17. Most gases including the gases in
air are invisible—you simply cannot
seem them.
A jar of air

18. However, you do know air is there
when it moves things such as this
windmill.
Wind—moving
air– causes this
windmill to
rotate.

19. Or when you use the gas in your
lungs to blow out a candle.

20. Can you name the three states of
matter?
Can you tell the difference
between these three states?
Bubbles hold
an invisible gas
called water
vapor