Matter
People describe objects in many ways using size, shape, colors, and textures.
Describing objects by using size, shape, color, and texture, uses an object's properties.
A property describes how an object looks, feels, or acts. The objects shown here have different kinds of properties:
Properties describe matter. A block of wood, milk, and air all have properties. All the material on earth is in three states-solid, liquid, and gas. The "state" of the matter refers to the group of matter with the same properties. In other words, you group the objects together according to their properties.
Properties of all objects
All objects take up space. Your computer is taking up space on the desk. You are taking up space on the chair.
Mass is how much there is of an object. Mass is related to how much something weighs. Mass and weight are two different things. The unit for mass is a gram. A nickel has the mass of about one gram.
Objects that take up space and have mass are called matter. Everything around you is made up of matter. Chocolate cake is made up of matter. You are made of matter.
If you are having trouble understanding matter, look all around you. You can see matter makes up the walls of your house and your classroom. Matter is large and matter is small.
Let's take this carrot:
Let's get closer and closer to the smaller parts of the carrot-carrot atoms!
These small parts of the carrot
are called atoms. Anything you see and can feel is made of atoms. All atoms are
too small to be seen with the naked eye or even a microscope, although there are
some new types of microscopes that are now able to see larger atoms such as
gold.
All matter is the same because all matter is made up of atoms. Matter is also different because objects can be made up of different kinds of atoms. Gold is made of one kind of atom-gold atoms. Salt is made up of two different kinds of atoms-sodium atoms and chloride atoms.
Properties of Matter
Remember all objects take up space and have mass. You use your sense of taste and smell to tell the difference between spinach and an orange.
Physical properties- The measurement of mass and other characteristics that can be seen without changing how that object looks are its physical properties. When you look at oranges, you know that they are oranges because of their color, shape, and smell. Mass, color, shape, volume, and density are some physical properties. The answers to the question about the present are physical properties.
Density is an important physical property. Density is the mass of a substance per unit volume. Volume is the amount of space an object occupies.
Chemical properties- These are properties
that can only be observed by changing the identity of the substance. A piece of
paper burns and turns to a black substance. After the flame goes out you can no
longer burn the new substance. The chemical properties have been changed.
Properties are constantly changing...
Matter is constantly changing. Ice in your soda melts, glass breaks, paper is ripped. When ice in your soda melts where does it go? What does it become?
If you remember, ice is water in the solid state. When you drop the ice cube into the liquid, it begins to melt because the temperature is higher than that of the ice cube. It's like putting a snowman on your front lawn in July. The ice cube becomes liquid water. This is an example of a physical change. The solid water turned to liquid water. It doesn't turn into soil or macaroni. It remains water. If it did change into soil or macaroni, your drink would taste terrible and you would have an example of a chemical change.
Chemical changes are changing substances into other substances. If it could happen, ice changing into macaroni would be an example of a chemical change. A real example of a chemical change is spoiling milk or burning toast. Milk needs to be in the refrigerator or else it will go bad. If you've ever seen or smelled spoiled milk, it is not a pretty sight. The milk gets a sour odor and becomes lumpy. Unlike physical changes, you cannot reverse chemical changes. You can melt ice to get water and freeze that water to get ice again. You cannot make milk unspoiled.
Solids
The wood block is solid. A solid has a certain size and shape. The wood block does not change size or shape.
Other examples of solids are the computer, the desk, and the floor.
You can change the shape of solids. You change the shape of sheets of lumber by sawing it in half or burning it.
From wood
to 
How might you change the shape of a piece of gum?
Liquids
Milk is a liquid. Milk is liquid matter. It has a size or volume. Volume means it takes up space. But milk doesn't have a definite shape. It takes the shape of its container.
Liquids can flow, be poured, and spilled. Did you ever spill juice? Did you notice how the liquid goes everywhere and you have to hurry and wipe it up? The liquid is taking the shape of the floor and the floor is expansive limitless boundary (until it hits the wall). You can't spill a wooden block. You can drop it and it still has the same shape.
What about jello and peanut butter?
You can spread peanut butter on bread, but peanut butter does not flow. It is not a liquid at room temperature. You have to heat peanut butter up to make it a liquid. When you or your mom make jello, it is first a liquid. You have to put it in the refrigerator so that it becomes a solid. These are yummy forms of matter with properties of a liquid and a solid.
Gases
Run in place very fast for a minute. Do you notice how hard you are breathing? What you are breathing is oxygen? You need oxygen to live. That's why you can only hold your breath for a certain amount of time.
You can't see oxygen. It's invisible. It is a gas. A gas is matter that has no shape or size of its own. Gases have no color.
Gases are all around you. You can feel gas when the wind blows. The wind is moving air. Air is many gases mixed together.
Review
What is Matter?
Read more about matter at this site: BBC-matter
Try an activity HERE
Activities to try (click on the sites below):
Reversible and irreversible changes