Unit 4 · Things Around Us · NCERT Class 4 Our Wondrous World

How Things are Made

Look around — your shirt, your plate, this book — everything is made of some material, and everything was made by someone from something. Tap each idea to explore materials, how raw things become useful things, and how to use them wisely.

🧱 3 topics⏱ ~12 min📝 10-question quiz

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Six ideas about how things are made

Everything is made of a material. Tap each term to see what things are made of and how.

Explore · Materialstap a term

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The three big ideas

Everything is made of a material — wood, metal, plastic, glass, cloth, paper or clay.
Natural materials come from nature: wood from trees, cotton from plants, wool from sheep, clay from the earth.
Man-made materials, like plastic, are made by people in factories. Each material is chosen for what it does well.

Everyday example. Why is a window made of glass and not cloth?

Glass is clear and hard, so we can see through it and it keeps out wind and rain — cloth could not.

A raw material is the starting material. Cotton is spun into thread, woven into cloth and stitched into clothes.
Wheat is ground into flour and baked into bread; clay is shaped and baked into pots; wood is cut and joined into furniture.
Many people work to turn raw materials into the things we use, often using machines in factories.

Common mix-up: Mix-up: things do not appear ready-made in a shop. Each one started as a raw material and was changed, step by step, by people and machines.

Reduce means using only what we need so less is wasted.
Reuse means using a thing again — like turning an empty jar into a pencil holder.
Recycle means making old things into new ones, like old paper into new paper. This saves trees and keeps the earth clean.

Everyday example. You have finished a glass jam jar. Instead of throwing it away, what could you do?

Wash it and reuse it to store buttons or pencils. Reusing saves materials and reduces waste.

Where you'll see it

From raw material to thing

A cotton shirt’s journey

Cotton grows on a plant, is spun into thread, woven into cloth and stitched into the shirt you wear.

Making a clay pot

A potter shapes soft clay on a wheel and bakes it hard in a fire, turning earth into a useful pot.

Reusing a jar

An empty jar becomes a pencil stand or a money box — one small reuse means one less thing thrown away.