Things Around Us
This world of things
Say what the things around you are made of and where the material came from, sort solids from liquids and gases, and tell transparent from translucent from opaque.
Khushi drew her classroom and then asked a harder question about her own drawing: where did these things come from, and what are they made of? The table and chair are wood, and wood comes from a tree. The hinges and nails are metal, dug out of rock from inside the Earth. The windowpanes are glass, and glass is mostly sand.
Three words for how much light gets through
Hold something up to a lamp. If you can see the lamp clearly, the thing is transparent — most glass is. If you can see a glow but no shape, it is translucent. If you see nothing, it is opaque, as wood is. The word depends on what gets through, not on what the thing is made of.
Take care
Do not look at the sun, directly or through an object. It will harm your eyes. Use a lamp or a candle flame for this, as the chapter does.
Have a play
Three panes with the same lamp behind each, and the word for each one.
Tap any part of the picture.
Worked example
Khushi finds a shiny spoon. Is it metal, or is it something else painted to look shiny?
Notice that looking at it will not settle the question. Shiny paint looks shiny.
This is the chapter's own closing puzzle, and it is a puzzle because sight is the sense that fails here.
Try it together
Now work out why a wall cannot be made of water, together.
Khushi wrote it as a joke in her odd-pairs table, and the chapter takes the joke seriously.
1.Pour water into a cup and it sits there, but it has taken the shape of the cup. What do we call something that flows like that?
Have a go
Your turn. The chapter says a wooden table cannot sensibly be made of fabric instead. Why not?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.