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Products and Processes :, Reference list: Department of Basic…
Products and Processes
:
Social Science
Workers and Industries
Class Activity
: Community Worker Circle
— Lead a group discussion exploring the human roles behind everyday products. Talk about what farmers, factory workers, and builders do, and why their jobs matter to our community.
Key Concept:
People in communities work in different industries (farming, manufacturing, construction) to produce goods.
Inquiry Activity:
Discussion circle identifying the roles of farmers, factory workers, and builders in making sugar and bricks available.
Community Needs and Economic Value
(DBE, 2011)
Key Concept:
Communities rely on processed products differently depending on their daily needs and environments.
Inquiry Activity:
Drawing activity illustrating plant and soil product uses.
Class Activity
: How We Use It Drawing
— Ask learners to draw two pictures: one showing how their family uses a plant product (like sugar in tea) and one showing how their community uses an earth product (like bricks for houses).
Past and Present Production
Key Concept:
How people in the past and present manufacture goods differently using tools and resources.
Bridging everyday home experiences with scientific and community concepts helps young learners actively connect their social environments to broader societal knowledge
(Fleer, 2002).
Inquiry Activity:
Compare historical vs. modern pictures of brick-making and farming.
Class Activity
: Then and Now Picture Match
— Display old historical photographs alongside modern pictures of brick-making or farming, and guide learners to spot how tools and methods have changed over time.
Natural Science
Properties of Raw Material
(Naud'e & Meier, 2025; DBE, 2011)
Class Activity
: Tactile Texture Table
— Give learners raw clay, a piece of sugarcane, soil and a fired brick to touch, smell, and compare. Have them describe the textures (e.g., rough, smooth, hard, soft) in groups.
Key Concept:
Raw materials have distinct observable physical properties (texture, state, flexibility).
Engaging young learners with natural raw materials through curiosity-driven exploration builds foundational knowledge of everyday goods and sustainability.
(GEOLMAC, n.d.)
Inquiry Activity
: Touch, smell, and compare raw clay and fired bricks
Origins of Materials
Class Activity
: Plant vs. Earth Sorting Game
— Provide a mixed box of picture cards or items and ask learners to sort them into two categories: things that come from plants (e.g., sugar, cotton) and things that come from the earth/soil (e.g., clay pots, bricks, sand).
Inquiry Activity
: Sorting items into plant-based vs. earth-based groups.
Key Concept:
Everyday products originate from natural sources found in plants or the earth.
Curiosity-driven exploration and sensory experiences by looking, touching, listening, and describing.
(Rhodes University Research Repository, n.d.)
Changing States and Properties
Inquiry Activity:
Observe how wet clay dries and hardens over time.
Class Activity
: The Drying Clay Observation
— Let learners mold wet, soft clay into small shapes and leave them out over a few days to observe how moisture evaporates, causing the physical state to transition from soft and pliable to hard and dry.
Key Concept:
Materials can change from one state to another (e.g., liquid to solid, soft wet clay to hard fired brick).
Technology
Processing and Transforming Materials
(Naudé & Meier, 2025)
Key Concept:
Materials undergo physical or chemical processing to change raw substances into useful products.
(Naudé & Meier, 2025; DBE, 2011)
Guided and structured inquiry methods where teachers and learners investigate problems together.
(ResearchGate, n.d.)
Class Activity
:
Clay Molding & Transformation
— Guide learners through the initial technology design step of taking raw, wet clay and shaping/molding it into a miniature brick or tile, discussing how raw substances are transformed into useful items.
Inquiry Activity:
Explore how wet clay is molded and fired into bricks.
Tools and Manufacturing Methods
Key Concept:
Specific tools and processes are used to manufacture items we need daily.
Foundational scientific process skills including observing, measuring, comparing, sorting, predicting and communicating.
(South African Journal of Childhood Education - SAJCE, n.d.)
Class Activity
: Industry Video & Role Exploration
— Show short, age-appropriate visual clips of how sugarcane is harvested and processed into sugar, followed by a class discussion on the tools and machines used in factories.
Inquiry Activity:
Watch videos of factory processes to identify how sugar is extracted and crystallized from sugarcane.
Designing and Building Solutions
Inquiry Activity:
Test mini brick structures to see which design holds weight best.
Class Activity
: Mini-Builder Stability Test
— Have learners stack small building blocks or lightweight bricks to test which structural arrangement is strongest and most stable for building a shelter.
Key Concept:
Technology involves designing structures or objects to solve human problems (e.g., building shelters with bricks).
Reference list:
Department of Basic Education (DBE). (2011). Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS): Life Skills, Grades R-3. Pretoria: Government Printing Works.
Naudé, M. and Meier, C. eds. (2025).
Teaching life skills in Foundation Phase
. 3rd ed. Pretoria: Van Schaik Publishers.
Rhodes University Research Repository, [n.d.].
Curiosity-Driven Exploration in Early Science.
Available at:
https://researchrepository.ru.ac.za/items/0017ac6e-47c2-4ae6-916b-e6487f062624/full
[Accessed 20 October 2026].
ResearchGate, [n.d.].
Inquiry-Based Science Teaching in Primary School
. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/393404561_Inquiry-Based_Science_Teaching_in_Primary_School
[Accessed 20 October 2026].
South African Journal of Childhood Education (SAJCE), [n.d.].
Scientific Process Skills
. Available at:
https://sajce.co.za/index.php/sajce/article/view/440/496
[Accessed 20 October 2026].
GEOLMAC, [n.d.].
Mineral raw materials and circular economy in school curriculums.
Journal of the Goce Delčev University. Available at:
https://js.ugd.edu.mk/index.php/GEOLMAC/article/view/5825
[Accessed 20 October 2026].
Fleer, M., 2002. From Vygotsky's to Hedegaard's theories: Understanding the active engagement of children in conceptual thinking.
Early Years
, 22(2), pp.119–128. Available at:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13502930285209921
[Accessed 20 October 2026].