Class 6 Science Chapter 6 Materials Around Us Revision Notes

Chapter 6 groups everyday materials by properties like lustre, hardness, and transparency — gold and steel on one side, cotton and sponge on the other, all summarised here.

Last Updated: September 23, 2026

Key Definitions

• Matter: anything that has mass and occupies space.
• Lustre: the shine/glow of a material’s surface.
• Hardness: resistance of a material to scratching or denting.

Groupings at a Glance

• Lustre: lustrous (gold, steel, aluminium foil) vs non-lustrous (wood, cotton, chalk).
• Hardness: hard (iron, stone, diamond) vs soft (cotton, sponge, rubber band).
• Transparency: transparent (clear glass, water) · translucent (butter paper, frosted glass) · opaque (wood, metal, brick).
• Solubility (in water): soluble (salt, sugar) vs insoluble (sand, chalk powder).
• Behaviour with water: floats (dry wood, cork, plastic) vs sinks (iron, stone, coin).

Important Notes

• Glass is transparent, not translucent.
• The same object can be made of different materials; the same material can make different objects.
• Air is matter — it has mass and occupies space, even though invisible.
• This chapter’s core properties are lustre, hardness, transparency, solubility, and float/sink behaviour — “heat conduction” is not a formal section here.

Quick revision:

• Revision Notes for Class 6 Science Chapter 1: The Wonderful World of Science
• Class 6 Science Chapter 2 Diversity in the Living World Revision Notes
• Class 6 Science Chapter 3 Mindful Eating: A Path to a Healthy Body Revision Notes
• Class 6 Science Chapter 4 Exploring Magnets Revision Notes
• Class 6 Science Chapter 5 Measurement of Length and Motion Revision Notes

Frequently Asked Questions

How are the objects around us typically classified based on the materials they are made of?
Objects are typically classified by grouping them according to properties of their material, such as whether they are made of metal, wood, plastic, glass, or rubber.

Why might the same object be made from different materials by different manufacturers?
The same object can be made from different materials depending on desired properties such as cost, weight, durability, or appearance, since materials offer different advantages.

Written by Satish

NCERTBooks.org is an independent educational resource run by a small team focused on making official NCERT textbooks easy to find, read, and download for students, parents, and teachers across India. We are not affiliated with NCERT or the Ministry of Education -- we organise publicly available NCERT content by class and subject, verify links against official sources, and build tools (like our in-browser reader) that make studying more convenient. Every guide we publish is written and reviewed by our team based on the actual NCERT curriculum and syllabus.