**Lesson Plan for Reception Science Class: Simple Physical Properties**
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**Topic:** Simple Physical Properties
**Year Group:** Reception
**Duration:** 45 minutes
**Learning Objectives:**
1. Introduce the concept of physical properties.
2. Allow students to explore and identify basic physical properties such as texture, colour, size, and shape.
3. Encourage observation and vocabulary development.
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**Materials:**
- Various objects with different textures, colours, sizes, and shapes (e.g. smooth ball, rough stone, soft toy, hard block).
- Colourful flashcards with descriptive words (smooth, rough, hard, soft, big, small, tall, short).
- Magnifying glasses.
- Worksheets with pictures of objects for sorting and matching.
- Storybook related to physical properties (suggested: "The Mixed-Up Chameleon" by Eric Carle).
- Containers to sort objects.
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**Lesson Structure:**
**1. Introduction (10 minutes)**
- **Greeting and Warm-Up**: Begin with a friendly greeting and a quick song to engage the children. Use a simple science-related song like "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" to get them moving and thinking about different properties.
- **Story Time**: Read "The Mixed-Up Chameleon" or a similar book. Discuss briefly how the chameleon changes, highlighting physical properties in the illustrations.
**2. Main Activity (20 minutes)**
- **Exploration Table**: Create a table with various objects for children to touch and explore. Provide magnifying glasses for closer inspection.
- **Guided Discussion**: Circulate the room and ask guiding questions such as:
- "How does this object feel?"
- "What colour is this object?"
- "Is this object big or small?"
- **Interactive Sorting**: Hand out flashcards and have children match them to objects. For example, hold up the “smooth” card and ask children to find a smooth object from the table. Place objects in labelled containers (smooth/rough, hard/soft, big/small).
**3. Group Activity (10 minutes)**
- **Object Sorting Worksheet**: Distribute worksheets with pictures of objects. Ask children to sort and colour objects based on given properties (e.g., circles for smooth and square for rough).
- **Class Discussion**: Gather everyone in a circle and discuss their findings. Encourage each child to share one thing they learned about an object.
**4. Conclusion (5 minutes)**
- **Review and Recap**: Go over the main points of the lesson. Use simple sentence starters like, "We learned that smooth things feel…", "A big object might be…" to reinforce the lesson.
- **Homework/Extended Activity**: Encourage children to go on a ‘property hunt’ at home. Ask them to find one soft and one hard object and bring them back to show the class in the next session.
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**Assessment:**
- Observational assessment during the exploration activity.
- Participation in group discussions.
- Accuracy and engagement in the worksheet activity.
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**Notes:**
- Ensure all objects used are safe and suitable for Reception children.
- Adapt the difficulty level based on the students' understanding and responses.
- Encourage all children to participate and help each other during activities.
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**Possible Extensions:**
- Introducing more complex properties such as weight (heavy/light) or flexibility (bendable/rigid).
- Creating a simple science journal where children can draw or paste pictures of objects and label their properties.
This lesson plan aims to make learning about physical properties interactive, engaging, and suitable for young learners in their early stages of scientific exploration.