Year 6 Materials (non-statutory) worksheet

“Rock salt or table salt?” is free to print, with no account. It is the first sheet in the Year 6 science unit “Materials (non-statutory)”, for children aged 10 to 11, and takes about 22 minutes.

Print it on A4. The child's pages come first; the answers, and what each wrong answer tells you, are on the grown-up page that follows. Weeks 31 to 32 of the year, 3 sheets in the unit.

Free sample · answers on the last page

Rock salt or table salt?

Name: ____________ · Date: ____________
Year 6 · Science · about 22 minutes
Answers are on the grown-up page

Today I can compare rock salt and table salt by looking closely at their crystals.

A Look back3 min

1.
Sand and salt were stirred into water, then poured through filter paper. Circle the word for what stays on the paper.
sandsaltwater
2.
Water in a puddle warms up and turns into vapour. Circle the word for this change.
evaporationcondensationmelting
3.
In this made-up test, 8 spoons of sugar dissolved in water and no sand did. Circle the material that dissolves.
sugarsand

B Watch me, then you4 min

Kit looks at 10 crystals of table salt and 10 crystals of rock salt with a hand lens. He counts how many are neat cubes.

Watch me

Table salt: 9 of the 10 crystals are cubes.

Rock salt: 2 of the 10 crystals are cubes.

Most table salt crystals are neat cubes, so the two salts look different.

Now you

1.
In Mia's test, table salt had 7 cube crystals and rock salt had 3, out of 10 each. How many more table salt crystals were cubes?

C Your turn8 min

Each chart shows the cube crystals and the total. Work out how many were not cubes. Each row changes one thing from the row above.

1.
Table salt: 9 of the 10 crystals are cubes. How many are not cubes?
2.
Table salt: 18 of the 20 crystals are cubes. How many are not cubes?
3.
Rock salt: 2 of the 10 crystals are cubes. How many are not cubes?
4.
Rock salt: 2 of the 20 crystals are cubes. How many are not cubes?

Say it out loud: What did you take away from, every time? Why did you choose that number?

D Spot the mistake3 min

A dim underground salt mine with pale grey walls and a cart of rough salt lumps

Ali says: “All table salt comes from the sea, so rock salt must be a different substance.”

1.
Explain in one or two sentences why Ali is wrong.

E Think deeper4 min

Two salt heaps on a dark background: one brown and lumpy, one fine and white.

1.
Look at the two heaps. Write one reason they look different, and one reason they are still the same salt.

How did it feel?

I can do it Nearly Not yet

For the grown-up

Rock salt or table salt? · 2 minutes to read

Answers, and what a wrong one tells you

A

1. sand

2. evaporation

3. sugar

B

1. 4

C

1. 1 Writing 19 means your child added the total and the cube count, 10 + 9. Ask: how many crystals are in the whole test? Take the cubes away from that.

2. 2 Writing 38 means your child added 20 and 18. Ask: is the number of non-cubes bigger or smaller than the total? Subtract the cubes from the total.

3. 8 Writing 2 means your child copied the cube count and did not take it away from the total. Ask: what does the question want you to find?

4. 18

D

1. Look for: Says that table salt can come from underground rock salt mines, not only the sea, and that both salts are mostly sodium chloride. If your child agrees with Ali, ask where the rough salt in a grit bin or a mine came from. Then ask what processing changes and what it leaves the same.

E

1. Look for: One reason for the difference, such as processing or removed impurities or crushing, and one reason they are the same, such as both being sodium chloride.

Words to use

Say“Which crystals are cube-shaped, and how do you know? What did processing change?”

Instead of“Tell them table salt all comes from the sea, so there is only one kind.”

After the sheet

Put a pinch of table salt and a pinch of coarse salt (not from a grit bin) on dark paper. Look with a magnifying glass, draw one crystal of each, and compare. Do not taste or eat any of it.

Tick what your child got right in StudyDen. Anything missed comes back in a later Look back box, so there's no need to redo the sheet.

The rest of this unit

2 more sheets come with a StudyDen plan, in teaching order:

Planning a salt test(with a plan)
Salt and ice results(with a plan)

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