Solutions and mixtures

Produced by FunKids Radio and the RSC, this short snippet uses Kareena and her superhero friend K-Mistry to introduce children to solutions, mixtures and separation techniques.

This podcasts can be used as a ’hook’ when introducing the topic to your students, or at the end of a lesson to stimulate discussion about what they have learnt.

If you teach primary science, see the headings below to find out how to use this resource:

Skill development

Children will develop their working scientifically skills by:

• Drawing conclusions and raising further questions that could be investigated, based on their data and observations.
• Using appropriate scientific language and ideas to explain, evaluate and communicate their methods and findings.
• Asking their own questions about scientific phenomena.

Learning outcomes

Children will:

• Observe that some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution, and describe how to recover a substance from a solution.
• Use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated, including through filtering, sieving and evaporating.

Concepts supported

Children will learn:

• What is meant by the terms ‘solution’ and ‘mixture’.
• That there are different types of mixtures, including solid-solid, liquid-liquid, and solid-liquid.
• That different separation techniques are suitable for separating different mixtures.

Suggested activity use

This activity provides a useful hook into investigating mixtures and could also provide an opportunity to investigate separating mixtures. Children could work in groups to first look at different mixtures, solid-solid, liquid-liquid, and solid-liquid. They could look at which solids and liquids make solutions, and which do not, before investigating how to separate different mixtures.

Practical considerations

You will need a range of different separating equipment, depending on which mixtures are being separated.

You may need prior knowledge of separation techniques, solids, liquids and gases.

Children will be able to understand that an emulsion is a kind of mixture consisting of things that do not normally mix. However, this is a concept that is not covered in the national curriculum at primary level.