Is God made of matter?

Have you heard about our 'Station Rotation'? Every Tuesday and Thursday Room Eight joins with Rooms Two and Three to do group activities in a rotation. There are five 'vertical' groups, which means that in each group there are some New Entrant children, some Year One children and some Year Two children - as well as a mix of boys and girls.

This rotation we are focusing on art and science, and this blog is about our science focus: matter. Three of our five stations this round are focusing on matter: what matter is, states of matter and properties of matter.

Miss McKenna told her group they were going to be learning about matter. "Matter?" Kori questioned. "What's matter?" asked Tausala. "Good question," Miss McKenna replied and she told the group that everything we can see and touch in the world is made of matter. One of her groups was incredulous (especially John Paul and Ryan) - "Dinosaurs?" they asked. Yes. "Mars?" Yes. "The sun?" Yes. "The Universe?" Yes. "Everything we can touch or see is made of matter." said Miss McKenna. 

"Gravity?" questioned Esrom. "Can you touch or see gravity?" asked Miss McKenna. We decided that gravity wasn't made of matter but then came a more challenging question: "Is God made of matter?" asked Ryan. We haven't answered this question yet. We pray to God and listen for him but we haven't seen him or touched him. Maybe one day in heaven we will - we don't know yet! 

We named lots of things that were made of matter - including our bodies and body parts. "Our skin," said Iliyas. "Blood," said another child. We also named lots of different things in the classroom - books, lights, posters, paintings - everything we could see and touch. 

Then we talked about the different kinds of matter there are: matter that is made by God and other matter that is made by people out of matter that God made. We broke into small groups and went for a walk outside to be scientists and observe things made by God and things made by people. 

For social sciences we are also learning that people have different roles to play as part of a group. So, each person in our groups chose a role to play. We had:

• a photographer to take photos on the iPad of the matter we saw
• a recorder to write down in two columns the things we saw made by God and the things we saw made by people
• a noise controller to make sure we were working at a good volume
• an encourager to make sure everyone was included and joining in (this is perhaps the most important role as we look at the value of 'justice' this term)
• a 'task checker' to make sure we were all doing the right thing
• a reporter to share back at the end what their group had found that was made by God and made by people

...and Miss McKenna was the time-keeper! We noticed lots of things outside but needed some help from Miss McKenna to know if they were made by God or people. Some examples of things we saw on our walk that God made were clouds, grass, dirt, mud, birds, the sky, the Earth and the sun. Some things we saw that people made were concrete, paper, taps, stairs and doors.

Here is Astyn - he was his group's recorder.

After our walk we reported back what we had observed and then Miss McKenna gave us a big pile of pictures to sort into different groups - those things made by people (man-made) and those made by God. We had lots of discussion about this - and it was trickier than you might think!

Mrs. Nobre's group is learning about water and the three different forms it can take: liquid, solid and gas. They looked at a picture of an iceberg floating in the ocean to prompt discussion and then talked about the different states water can be found in.

Then they had a sorting activity where they had to look at different pictures and decide whether it was a picture of water as a solid, liquid or gas and glue it into the correct column.

Miss T's group was looking at some properties of matter and they went on a treasure hunt in the classroom to find, and then draw, objects that were:

• smooth
• rough
• shiny
• dull
• sharp
• blunt
• liquid
• solid
• hard
• soft
• flexible
• inflexible

Some of these words were new and we are doing lots of good learning to understand what they mean. Help us at home by finding things around the house that have these properties. Maybe you can help us out with our wondering about matter too. What do you think - is God made of matter?