May the Force Be With You!

We spent the last few weeks as scientists engaged in an exploration of force and motion. We started our unit by thinking about what we already knew about this topic and adding these ideas to our schema chart. Students had some interesting ideas to offer and certainly had some basic underlying understandings about the topic, but they seemed very excited to delve in and learn even more!

Throughout the unit, we read many books and did investigations and experiments, including a "Surface Safari" (to investigate how friction impacts the movement of different objects), an experiment to examine the force of gravity, many activities looking at the idea of "push" and "pull," as well as an experiment called "Does It Slide or Roll?"

Above, we investigated how much force Kate needs to use to push a bin when Haysen is in it and when it is empty.

Students explore how friction impacts the motion of an object.

Above, Addie and Haysen experiment with whether objects roll or slide. 

Below are some of the books that we read during our unit:

 

 

As a culminating activity for this unit, I invited families to work together to create a "Shoe Box Car" to enter into our class derby. The goal of the derby was for the Shoe Box Car to move a cardboard building block as far as possible. I asked students to consider all that they had learned about force and motion when designing and building their car. I was blown away by how many families participated in this activity and by the impressive cars that were built! Students really seemed to understand the concept that their car needed to have some weight to it (to create a bigger force and push the block further). Honestly, even though we didn't present trophies or awards to the winner, all of these kiddos came in first in my book! Thank you to all of you for supporting your child's learning at home with this activity. Based on the level of engagement and enthusiasm they all exhibited during this unit, my guess is that they will remember the learning and activities for a long while! 

 

Students are already asking when we can be scientists again! Their excitement and enthusiasm for learning is contagious!