States of Matter: Teachers

Lesson Plans and More Lesson Plans:

• The American Chemical Society (ACS) offers standards-aligned lesson plans and engaging hands-on activities that will enhance elementary students' understanding of states of matter. K-2 teachers may want to check out their ABC activity.


• For middle school teachers, the ACS provides excellent lesson plans on solids, liquids and gases and changes of state.


• Find lesson plans, labs, and demonstrations for elementary and middle school classrooms from the American Association of Chemistry Teachers.


• Students often have misperceptions about states and changes of matter. Find out how to help develop more accurate understanding in your students.

PBS Learning Media has a wealth of lesson plans, videos and interactives on States of Matter for all grade levels.

States of Matter interactive from NOVA.

States of matter basic science and easy to understand text to show on your interactive whiteboard. Lots of additional information on related topics too.

The Three States of Matter PowerPoint — Excellent tool for teaching about properties and the basics of matter.

Molecules, Compounds and Mixtures

Make Ooze with these instructions, then use this lesson plan to make it more meaningful.

Here is a great refresher from NYU on molecules, compounds and mixtures to update your own knowledge or to share with your class.

You may want to take a look at these learner guides and video clips on Solids, Liquids and Gases from BBC BiteSize.

Here is another source for teaching states of matter using your interactive whiteboard as your text. Great reading information and well organized in chapters.

Atoms, Elements, and Compounds

Here is a good overview on atoms, the building blocks of matter.

If you have access to HyperStudio — this lesson might interest you. It is more like a unit on states of matter — lots to use with your upper grade students.

For K-2 teachers, the Ruff Ruffman Show from PBS is a great resource for teaching about states of matter. The collection includes complete teaching guides, five engaging videos, and hands-on activities. Available in Spanish.

Super Teacher Resources

States of Matter Jeopardy to use with your interactive whiteboard.

Super teacher resource for games, worksheets, diagrams, videos — you name it — all about matter.

Here is a terrific worksheet about the three states of matter. It helps students see the relationship of the atoms and how they work in each of the different states. Vocabulary practice at the end.

Jefferson Lab provides a huge collection of teacher resources including games, puzzles and experiments.

The Exploratorium provides simple, hands-on activities for investigating States of Matter.

From the Royal Society of Chemistry, scroll down to find activities and resources for your States of Matter unit.