Hard, soft, rough, smooth
Chemistry · Early Years · The School
Feeling words
A stone is HARD. A cushion is SOFT. Sandpaper is ROUGH. A window is SMOOTH. Close your eyes, hold something, and say a word for how it feels. Doing it with your eyes shut is the point — your hands tell you things your eyes were answering for you.
A sorting game
Collect ten things from around the room. Put all the hard ones in one pile and all the soft ones in another. Some will be tricky: is a book hard or soft? Arguing about the tricky ones is exactly what scientists do, and there is often no single right answer.
Why it matters
We choose materials by how they feel and behave. Nobody makes a jumper out of stone or a road out of wool. Ask a grown-up why a saucepan handle is not metal all the way along — the answer is about the material, not the shape.
Feel a window, a sponge, a brick and a silk scarf. Ask TWO separate questions about each. Window: hard? Yes. Rough? No. Sponge: hard? No. Rough? Yes. Brick: hard yes, rough yes. Scarf: hard no, rough no. Every combination turned up, which proves the two questions are separate. Now find a fifth thing and predict both answers before you touch it.