This 5th grade science sheet asks students to sort twelve everyday examples into a Mixtures column and a Solutions column. Trail mix, salad and iron filings and sand sit beside salt water, air, vinegar and tea without leaves. A second page has two written questions, one on telling the two apart by looking and one on solute and solvent. The answer key is on page 3. It matches NGSS 5-PS1-3.
5-PS1-3
“Make observations and measurements to identify materials based on their properties.”
The twelve cards ask students to decide whether the parts can still be seen, and question 1 asks how to tell by looking.
Students write twelve examples into a two-column chart. Six belong under Mixtures, such as cereal and milk and a bag of marbles and buttons, and six under Solutions, such as sugar water and lemonade powder in water.
Students explain in writing how to tell a solution from a mixture by looking, then name the solute and the solvent in salt water. A photo of beakers and a spoonful of salt sits above the questions.
Both columns filled in, with a model answer that a solution looks the same throughout, and salt named as the solute and water as the solvent.
Before teaching dissolving
Hand it out cold, before the vocabulary. The tea and vinegar cards split a class quickly and give you something to argue about.
Pair talk
Let pairs agree on a column for air and vinegar before anyone writes. Both look like one substance, so expect a good discussion.
Exit ticket
Use question 2 on its own at the end of a lesson. A student who writes water as the solute needs the two words again.
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