🏖️➡️🥛
From Sand to Glass!
Look at a clear glass window or a drinking cup. Would you believe it
started as a pile of plain sand — just like the sand at the beach?
🤔 It sounds like magic, but it's really science. In this lesson
you'll heat sand, melt it, shape it, and cool it — step by step — to make glass!
Tap Next to start the adventure. 👉
Glass has a recipe 🍳
Just like baking a cake, making glass needs a few ingredients. Tap each card
to find out what it does.
🟡
Sand
The main ingredient! Special sand is full of silica, which turns into glass when it gets super hot.
🧂
Soda Ash
A powder that helps the sand melt at a lower temperature — so we use less energy.
🪨
Limestone
Makes the finished glass strong and tough so it doesn't fall apart in water.
Into the fiery furnace 🔥
Sand is hard and doesn't melt easily. We must heat it in a furnace that is
much hotter than your oven at home — over 1700°C!
Melted into glowing goo 🍯
When the sand melts, it turns into a thick, glowing-orange liquid called
molten glass. It's soft and bendy — a bit like very hot honey.
💡 Because it's soft, workers can now shape it into almost anything —
bottles, windows, cups or marbles!
Now we shape it! ✨
While the glass is soft, there are clever ways to give it a shape.
Tap a method to see what it makes.
💨
Blowing
A worker blows air through a tube to puff the glass like a balloon — perfect for bottles & vases.
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Floating
The glass floats on liquid metal so it spreads out flat and smooth — perfect for windows.
🧊
Pressing
Glass is pressed into a mould, like jelly in a cup — perfect for cups & jars.
Cool it down — slowly! 🧊
Hot glass must be cooled very slowly in a special oven. If it cools too fast,
it cracks and breaks — like an ice cube dropped into hot soup!
🦺 This careful cooling step is called annealing. It makes the glass
strong instead of fragile.
You're the glass maker! 🏭
Show what you've learned. Tap the steps in the correct order, from first to last.
🎉🥛✨
You're a Glass Expert!
Here's the whole journey from beach to bottle:
- 🟡 Mix sand with soda ash and limestone.
- 🔥 Heat it in a furnace hotter than 1700°C.
- 🍯 The sand melts into glowing molten glass.
- ✨ Shape it by blowing, floating or pressing.
- 🧊 Cool it slowly so it grows strong.
🌟 Next time you sip from a glass, remember — it began as a handful
of sand! Great work, scientist.