Reply To: Living or Biological Clarification
Regarding your first question, everything human-made starts with from something biological (add) or NATURAL EARTH categories (or both). A tin can, for example is from natural earth materials–iron ore. (How much work sheet stuff you have your son do is up to you. If he enjoys it, fine; If he doesn’t like it, go easy on it. We don’t want him to get the feeling that science is too much forced dull work.
To round out the concept, introduce the word “resources”. Everything human-made demands starting with certain resources–biological and or natural earth.
Regarding your second question. I would let it go for the time being and move on to Lesson C-1. There you will develop concepts of energy and forms of energy, which are very different from any form of matter. Then you can come back to fire and the sun. What we witness here is heat and light, i.e., forms of energy.
The concept you are heading toward is that we have two things: matter (biological and natural earth) and energy, which makes everything go, work, or change. Energy becomes a required resource for everything we do/make in addition to the material resources.
Please don’t expect that learning should occur in specific steps that kids can check off on a worksheet. The vastness of everything out there is bound to cause confusion and missunderstandings. The real learning occurs as you recognize and accept the confusion and struggle with sorting it out and correcting the misunderstandings. You are on the right track by asking questions. Please keep at it.