Matter, Materials, and Energy: Teaching English Natural Sciences
Are you searching for English teaching resources on matter, materials, and energy? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
As an auxiliar de conversación, I taught about matter, materials, and energy in English during third grade natural science classes at a bilingual primary school in Spain. To do so, I created a complete English lesson plan to teach students about matter, materials, and energy, and I compiled lots of English educational videos, including English songs.
The resources I’ve put together are intended for teaching English as foreign language to third grade primary school students in Spain. But I think these educational materials could also be used for teaching English as a second language or teaching English to speakers of other languages in general, as this lesson was created for an immersive classroom setting.
And while I put these English teaching resources together with third grade primary school students in mind, the materials in this blog post could probably be used for primary school students of other grades, too. Specifically, I think these materials could be used to review natural science English vocabulary and concepts with fourth, fifth, and sixth grade English language learners.
In this blog post, you’ll find all of the resources I compiled to teach about matter, materials, and energy in a bilingual third grade natural sciences class.
More specifically, the topics covered include 1) definitions of matter, materials, energy, mass, and volume, 2) pure substances vs. mixtures, 3) the three states of matter (solid, liquid, and gas), 4) man-made vs. natural materials, and 5) types of energy (mechanical, electrical, light, thermal, sound, and chemical). There is also a brief lesson to help students differentiate between things that contain matter and things that do not contain matter.
Please feel free to use whatever resources on this page work for you and your English language learners!
Blog Post Summary:
English Songs
Other English Videos
States of Matter
Materials
Energy
Complete English Lesson Plan
English Songs:
The Three States of Matter Song - Here’s a simple, easy, and fun English song to get your students verbalizing basic concepts about the three states of matter.
Other English Videos:
States of Matter
States of Matter: Educational Videos for Kids - This video teaches students about the three states of matter, as well as other basic concepts related to matter. The video uses cartoons to provide visual elements to aid in learning.
States of Matter for Kids - Here’s another English video to teach about the three states of matter. I like how this video uses a simple story about a girl making popsicles to teach this natural sciences lesson.
Materials
Materials – Science for Kids - This videos uses cartoons accompanied by simple English sentences and vocabulary words related to materials. The video shows examples of things made from the following materials: wood, metal, plastic, rock, fabric, rubber, glass, and leather.
Energy
What Are the Main Types of Energy? - Here’s a video to teach students about the main types of energy. The sentences are a bit complex, so this video might be better for slightly older English language learners.
What is Energy? Types of Energy - This video teaches more simple English vocabulary words for types of energy, but the sentences used in the video are a bit complex. So perhaps this video would be better for teaching English natural sciences to older students.
What is Energy? - Here’s a fun video for teaching about energy. The video uses interesting examples to describe different types of energy and how they work.
Complete English Lesson Plan:
In addition to English videos, English songs, and interactive English speaking activities, this lesson plan also contains some English games to get students excited about learning in their natural sciences class.
To download the above English lesson plan as a Google Slides presentation, click here.
I hope you and your primary school students enjoy using these resources for teaching and learning about matter, materials, and energy in English.
Looking for more English teaching resources for primary school natural sciences classes? Click the button below!
Looking for resources to teach English in other academic and extracurricular classes? Click the button below to see all of the English teaching materials I’ve compiled so far!
