1. Solids Solids can be hard, soft, big or small like grains of sand. The key is that the solids hold their shape and they don't flow like a liquid. A rock will always look like a rock unless something happens to it. The same goes for a diamond. Even when you grind up a solid into a powder, you will see tiny pieces of that solid under a microscope. Liquids will flow and fill up any shape of container. Solids like their shape. The atoms inside of a solid are not allowed to move around too much. This is one of the physical characteristics of solids.

2. Matter Matter is anything that takes up space. Matter has many physical properties that you can observe using your five senses. You can feel matter, taste matter, see matter, hear matter and smell matter. Matter has different states. The three states we can observe are solids, liquids, and gases. Adding heat or taking heat away causes matter to change states. This is because adding heat makes the particles in matter move faster. Taking away heat, or cooling, makes the particles slow down.

3. Volume Volume is the amount of space an object takes up. All matter takes up space. Mass is how much matter is in an object. The mass of an object stays the same in any way its matter is arranged. You can’t tell how much mass an object has if you just look at it. You have to measure to find out how much mass an object has. Different objects can have the same volume but different masses. A Ping Pong ball takes up about the same amount of space as a golf ball, but the Ping Pong ball has much less mass. A lime has about the same volume as an egg, but the lime has more mass.

4. Mixtures Matter can change size, shape, and state. Matter can be mixed. Changes to matter that don’t form any new kinds of matter are called physical changes. Some physical changes make objects look very different. A mixture contains two or more types of matter. A solution is a kind of mixture. Some mixtures can be separated by hand, but the different kinds of matter in a solution can’t be separated by hand. In a solution the particles of the different kinds of matter are mixed evenly.

5. Bridges When engineers design and make something, they choose their materials carefully. They use materials that change in ways that are useful and don’t change in ways that cause problems. When they want to build a bridge, they use materials that are strong. They look for materials that won’t bend or break when cars and trucks drive over them. They might use steel, or concrete – or plastic. Scientists have developed a new kind of plastic that is strong enough to hold the weight of cars and trucks. It is a kind of composite, or a material made of several different things put together.

6. Force A force is a push or pull. You push on a door. You pull on a wagon. Each push or pull is a force. There are many different forces. The force of the wind pushes sailboats and windmills. Forces in car engines can pull cars down the street. The amount of force you have to use to move an object depends on its mass. The more mass something has, the more force you have to use to make it move. All motion is caused by forces.

7. Motion Motion is a change in position. Every time you see something in motion, you know a force somewhere got it going. Every motion is started by a force and every motion is stopped by a force. Once something is in motion, it will move until some force stops it. Sometimes when forces are balanced motion is not stopped or started. An example is a clown riding her unicycle. The same forces pushing on the left side are the same as the forces pushing on the right side. This keeps her from falling sideways.