Learn about transparent materials with Twinkl

I reviewed Twinkl Educational Resources recently and was amazed by the sheer amount of fun and educational activities available. Twinkl has a huge range of free materials catering for Early Years, KS1 and KS2, which can be downloaded and printed, as well as extra premium resources that you pay an annual subscription to have access to.

The site is easy to navigate and helpfully divided into different subject areas. I was of course, drawn straight to the science section. My 5-year-old has been learning about materials at school this term, so I knew he would enjoy this transparent vs non-transparent activity, which is a great way to learn about transparent materials.

The idea is to decide whether the items on the squares are transparent or not.

We talked about how transparent objects look clear, and you can see straight through them, whilst non-transparent objects you cannot see through. We call these opaque.

I took the activity a step further and collected some objects from around the house, and asked the children to classify them as transparent or non -transparent.

They did a fantastic job sorting the objects for me.

As they did so well with the sorting, I then showed them some tracing paper. We talked about how we couldn’t see through it when we tried to look, but if we put it on top of another piece of paper we could see the drawing underneath. Tracing paper is an example of a translucent object.

Why can you see through a transparent object?

The reason we can see through transparent objects is that they transmit light without scattering it.

Last Updated on June 8, 2023 by Emma Vanstone