Properties of Solutions Activity: 8 Hands-On Stations for Teaching Dissolving and Conservation of Matter (TEKS 5.6C)

Chris Kesler · 8 min read

Stir a teaspoon of sugar into a cup of water and ask a 5th grader where the sugar went. You'll get a confident answer: it dissolved, it's gone. Now put the cup on a scale. The mass is the same as the water plus the sugar before they were mixed, down to the gram. The sugar isn't gone. It's still in the cup, broken into pieces too small to see, sitting in between the water particles. That's the entire concept of a solution, and it's one of the trickiest ideas in 5th-grade chemistry because what your eyes tell you and what the scale tells you don't match.

That's TEKS 5.6C. It asks 5th graders to investigate and explain the formation of solutions, demonstrating that matter is conserved when substances dissolve. They have to use the word "soluble" with meaning, predict whether a substance will dissolve, and explain why the mass stays the same even when something looks like it has disappeared.

The Properties of Solutions Station Lab for TEKS 5.6C puts a scale, a cup of water, and a teaspoon of sugar in front of every group. They weigh the water alone, then the sugar alone, then stir them together and weigh the solution. The number doesn't change. By the end, they know dissolving isn't disappearing.

⏱ 1–2 class periods 📓 5th Grade Science 🧪 TEKS 5.6C 🎯 Built-in differentiation 💻 Print or Digital

8 hands-on stations for teaching properties of solutions

A station lab is a student-led activity where small groups rotate through 8 stations (plus a 9th challenge station for early finishers) at their own pace during one to two class periods. You become a facilitator instead of a lecturer. You walk around, spot-check, and break misconceptions while kids work through the rotation.

The Properties of Solutions Station Lab has four input stations (where students take in new information on solutions, dissolving, and conservation of matter) and four output stations (where they show what they learned). Here's what's at each one.

📷 Image slot 1 — add screenshot

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4 input stations: how students learn properties of solutions

🎬 Watch It! —

A short YouTube video walks students through what happens to sugar at the particle level when it dissolves in water. Three questions on the answer sheet check whether students caught the big ideas: what happened to the solid sugar molecules when they were mixed with water, what happened to the water that seemed to disappear in the narrator's glass, and whether matter ever just "goes away." Visual learners come alive here because the animation zooms in on the sugar particles breaking apart and spreading between the water particles.

📖 Read It! —

A one-page passage called "Where Did It Go? Understanding Solutions" walks through the sweet lemonade scenario step by step. Sugar mixes evenly into water, dissolves into pieces too small to see, but the sweet taste proves it's still there. Heat the solution and the water evaporates, leaving the sugar behind. A second example covers soda water and dissolved carbon dioxide. Vocabulary is bolded throughout (solution, soluble, dissolved, physical properties, conserved). Three multiple-choice questions follow, plus a vocabulary section. Comes in two reading levels (Dependent and Modified) plus a Spanish version.

🔬 Explore It! —

This is the heart of the lab and the place where the "matter is conserved" idea actually clicks. Each group fills a clear cup halfway with water and weighs it. Then they weigh one teaspoon of sugar in a cupcake liner (subtracting the liner's mass to get the sugar alone). They pour the sugar in, stir for 30 seconds, and weigh the solution. The mass equals the water plus the sugar, every time. Five questions tie the observations to physical properties of sugar and water, what they saw happen during stirring, why the mass didn't change, and what would happen if the cup sat outside on a hot day (the water evaporates, the sugar stays).

💻 Research It! —

Eight reference cards build the conceptual scaffolding. The Solution card shows salt plus water equaling salt water with a spoon. The Particles in a Solution card zooms in on a beaker so students can see salt and water particles mixed together at the molecular level. The Physical Properties of Matter card reviews color, state, mass, and the five senses. Two text cards explain the law of conservation of matter and apply it to ocean water and to a vinegar-baking-soda reaction. Five questions push students to compare physical properties before and after mixing, describe what salt water particles look like, and explain how matter is conserved in both dissolving and chemical reactions.

📷 Featured station deep-dive — add screenshot of the Explore It! task card

4 output stations: how students show what they learned

📋 Organize It! —

A two-column True / False card sort. Ten statements about solutions get matched to True or False. True: the mass of sugar water is the same before and after mixing, sugar and salt are soluble, sugar is still there even when you can't see it, the texture of sugar changes when mixed into water, dissolving spreads a substance evenly. False: saltwater has more mass than salt plus water, matter has no mass when mixed in water, all solutions are solid-in-liquid, sugar is gone forever once mixed, water tastes the same no matter what dissolves in it. The False statements are the misconceptions you want to flush out. Quick to spot-check at a glance.

🎨 Illustrate It! —

Students draw a "before" picture showing two separate substances with each labeled with mass and at least two physical properties (color, texture, taste). Then they draw an "after" picture of the solution with its mass and physical properties labeled. The key insight, which they'll have to commit to on paper, is that the masses add up exactly. The before mass plus the before mass equals the after mass. Even kids who say "I can't draw" surprise themselves here because the labels do the work, not the artwork.

✍️ Write It! —

Three open-ended questions in complete sentences: why does the mass of a solution stay the same before and after the sugar dissolves, how does the appearance of substances change after mixing and why does that happen, and what would happen if you left a bottle of soda water open for a long time (the carbon dioxide gas escapes, the soda goes flat, the mass actually does drop because matter left the system). The soda question is the one to watch. Kids who can predict the flat-soda outcome and explain it in terms of gas escaping show they actually own the concept.

📝 Assess It! —

Three multiple-choice questions plus a fill-in-the-paragraph using the five Read It! vocabulary words (solution, soluble, dissolved, physical properties, conserved). The multiple choice covers what happens to sugar when mixed with water (breaks into tiny pieces that dissolve), what "soluble" means, and what's true about the mass of a solution (it equals the sum of the water and sugar). The paragraph weaves the vocabulary into a real soda-water scenario. If you're grading the lab, this is the easiest station to grade.

Bonus Challenge It! station for early finishers

🏆 Challenge It! —

Four optional extensions: build a collage of solutions and their physical properties using magazine images or drawings, write an acrostic poem using the word SOLUTION describing physical properties and conservation of matter, design and run a simple experiment to test whether different substances (flour, sand, oil) dissolve in water and chart the results, or design a poster illustrating the law of conservation of matter using dissolving salt, soda water, and the vinegar-baking-soda reaction. Requires teacher approval before they start.

How this fits into a complete Properties of Solutions unit

This Station Lab is the Explore day of our full Properties of Solutions Complete 5E Lesson for TEKS 5.6C. The complete two-week unit follows the 5E method of instruction and includes an Engage hook, the Properties of Solutions Station Lab for Explore, PowerPoint slides and interactive notebook pages for Explain, student choice projects to Elaborate, and an Evaluate assessment.

Most 5th-grade teachers grab the full 5E because the Station Lab lands hardest with the days around it. But if you just need a strong hands-on day on solutions and conservation of matter, the Station Lab on its own does the job.

Two options

Full 5E Lesson $13.20 Get the 5E Lesson

Properties of Solutions Station Lab cover

Just the Station Lab $7.20 Get the Station Lab

Materials needed to teach properties of solutions

Materials beyond what's in the download:

One clear plastic cup or container per group for the Explore It! station. Anything see-through works; a 9 oz cup is plenty.
One scale or balance per group. A digital kitchen scale (around $10 at any big-box store) is the easiest option and reads to the nearest gram, which is plenty of precision. A triple beam balance works too if you already have them.
Sugar (one teaspoon per group). A small bag of regular granulated sugar covers a whole class easily.
One paper cupcake liner per group for weighing the sugar (so the sugar doesn't pile directly on the scale).
One plastic spoon per group for stirring.
Pitcher of water or access to a sink for refilling cups.
Colored pencils or markers for the Illustrate It! station.
Pencils and the printed answer sheets (included)
A device with internet for the Watch It! station

Standard covered: Texas TEKS 5.6C —

Investigate and explain the formation of solutions in which the original substances are present but no longer visible, and demonstrate that matter is conserved.

See the full standard breakdown →

Grade level: 5th grade physical science

Time: One to two class periods (45–110 minutes total). Plan for two periods the first time you run a station lab.

Common student misconceptions this lab fixes

"When sugar dissolves, it's gone. The water just took it apart and now there's only water left."
This is the headline misconception for 5.6C. 5th graders see the sugar disappear and assume the matter is gone with it. The Explore It! station kills this idea with the scale. Sugar weighs 4 grams. Water weighs 100 grams. Stir them together, and the solution weighs 104 grams. Not less. The mass didn't drop, which means the sugar is still in the cup. The Read It! passage spells it out plainly: "It dissolved into tiny pieces too small to see." The Watch It! video animates the same idea by showing the sugar particles spreading between the water particles. By the time they hit the Write It! mass question, they can explain that dissolved means broken-apart-and-spread-around, not gone.
"If two things mix together and the mixture looks like just one thing, that's a chemical reaction."
5th graders often lump dissolving in with chemical change because both involve mixing and both look like one substance becomes another. The Research It! station draws the line clearly. Salt water is a solution (the salt and water are still salt and water, you just can't see the salt). The vinegar and baking soda card on the same station is also there for contrast: that reaction makes bubbles, gives off gas, and you can't separate it back, because new substances actually formed. The Illustrate It! "before and after" drawings make the difference physical and visible. Solutions are reversible (evaporate the water and the sugar comes back). Chemical reactions usually aren't.
"Solutions only happen when a solid dissolves in a liquid. Like sugar in water or salt in water."
If you only show 5th graders sugar water and salt water, this assumption is fair. But solutions also include liquids in liquids and gases in liquids. The Research It! soda water card calls this out directly: carbon dioxide gas dissolved in water makes a fizzy solution. The vinegar example is liquid-in-liquid. The Organize It! true-false card sort even has one specifically aimed at this ("All solutions are made from a solid dissolving into a liquid" is False). By the end, kids know solutions are about even mixing at the particle level, not about which states are involved.

What you get with this Properties of Solutions activity

📷 Inside-the-product — add screenshot of Read It passage or sample answer sheet

When you buy the Station Lab, you get a single download with everything you need:

Print version at two reading levels (Dependent for on-grade, Modified for additional support) plus a Spanish Read It! passage
Digital version as PowerPoint files (works in Google Slides too) at both levels — for 1:1 classrooms or Google Classroom
Teacher Directions and Answer Key for both versions, all keys included
Station task cards ready to print, laminate, and drop in baskets at each station
Reference cards for the Research It! station (8 cards covering solution formation, particles in solutions, physical properties of matter, the law of conservation of matter, ocean-water salt, and vinegar-baking-soda reactions)
Sort cards for the Organize It! station (10 true-false statements about solutions and conservation)
Student answer sheets for each level

Tips for teaching properties of solutions in your 5th grade classroom

Two things make this lab go smoother the first time:

1. Tare the scale before each group rotates in.

Digital scales drift, especially if anything was set on them between groups. Before each new group sits down at the Explore It! station, tap the tare button with an empty cup on the scale so it reads zero. If the scale isn't zeroed, the mass before and after won't quite match, and the kid who notices will lose faith in the whole conservation-of-matter idea. Thirty seconds of tare-and-confirm at handoff saves a teaching moment that you can't easily get back later.

2. Use room-temperature water and warn against stirring too hard.

The sugar dissolves faster in warm water, but room temperature is fine and avoids the temptation to talk about heat and dissolving rates (which is a 6th-grade idea). Also, if students stir too aggressively, they splash water out of the cup and lose mass that way. A gentle 30-second stir is plenty. If you want a quick demo of how stirring helps, do that as a whole-class kickoff, then send them to the station with the slow-and-steady rule.

Get this Properties of Solutions activity

Properties of Solutions Station Lab for 5th grade physical science — TEKS 5.6C

Buy the Station Lab — $7.20

Or if you want the full two-week experience with the Engage hook, Explain day, Elaborate extension, and Evaluate assessment all included:

Buy the full 5E Complete Lesson — $13.20

(Station Lab is included)

Frequently asked questions

What does TEKS 5.6C cover?

Texas TEKS 5.6C asks 5th grade students to investigate and explain the formation of solutions in which the original substances are present but no longer visible, and to demonstrate that matter is conserved when substances dissolve. Students should be able to recognize a solution, predict whether a substance is soluble, and explain why the mass of a solution equals the mass of its parts combined.

Is this kids' first time meeting the word "solution" in a science class?

For most 5th graders, yes. They've heard the word in math ("the solution is x=4") and in everyday speech ("a cleaning solution"). The science meaning, where a solution is a special kind of mixture with substances dissolved evenly throughout, is new. The Read It! passage and Watch It! video both anchor it in sugar-water and lemonade. The Explore It! station makes the conservation-of-matter piece concrete with an actual scale. By the end, they have a working vocabulary that sets them up for 5.6D and middle school chemistry.

How long does this Properties of Solutions activity take?

One to two class periods (45 to 110 minutes total). The Explore It! station with three separate weighings is the longest piece, so plan for two periods the first time you run a station lab. Once your class has the rotation routine down, most groups can finish all 8 stations in one period.

Do I really need scales for this?

Yes, and they're the only piece of equipment that matters. The whole point of the Explore It! station is to prove that the mass doesn't change when sugar dissolves. Without a scale to read the number, the lesson loses its punch. A $10 digital kitchen scale per group is enough, and one scale per two groups works if you're short. Skipping the weighing turns the station into "watch sugar dissolve," which is a different (and weaker) lesson.

Can I use this in a 1:1 digital classroom?

Yes. The full digital version (PowerPoint or Google Slides) works in 1:1 classrooms and Google Classroom. Students drag digital true/false cards at the Organize It! station and type their responses. The Explore It! hands-on weighing is hard to digitize fully, but a teacher-led demo with a single scale projected on a doc camera can stand in for it. The hands-on version is much better if you can swing the supplies, because the moment a 5th grader sees "104 grams" both before and after stirring is the moment the standard clicks.