Light Sources Sorting

Year 3 ScienceLight3 pages

About this worksheet

A museum curator has dropped a box of display labels, and Year 3 pupils sort them on this three-page light worksheet. There are twelve objects, from the Sun and a glow-worm to a flat mirror and a diamond ring. Pupils write each one under Light Source or Not a Light Source. Two follow-up questions ask for the hardest item to place and for one new example of each kind. The answer key lists the full sort and explains the common traps, such as the Moon. It is one of the Year 3 light objectives in the England National Curriculum.

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Curriculum objectives covered

Light

โ€œRecognise that they need light in order to see things and that dark is the absence of lightโ€

Partial. The sort separates objects that make light from those that only reflect it, which leads into why we need light to see. The sheet does not ask about dark as the absence of light.

What's inside this worksheet

Light Sources and Reflectors: Sorting Activity

The Museum Mix-Up story, the twelve objects and a two-column table headed Light Source (makes light) and Not a Light Source (does not make light).

Follow-Up Questions

Question 1 asks which item was tricky and why. Question 2 asks for one new light source and one new object that is not a light source.

How teachers use it

Dark den

Take a mirror and a torch into a blacked-out corner. The mirror shows nothing until the torch goes on.

The Moon debate

Many pupils will put the Moon under Light Source. Hold back the answer and let them argue it out first.

Hi-vis test

Shine a torch on a high-visibility jacket to settle which column it belongs in.

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