Kindergarteners Investigate Forces!

Kindergarten has started their new unit on Pushes and Pulls. They went around the science classroom pushing and pulling objects.  Some objects were harder to move than other objects.  We also discovered that an object can be pushed AND pulled! Just like real scientists, we recorded our discoveries.

During our next investigation, we had a bag of nine objects to explore.  We wanted to have an object exert a force on another object instead of us exerting the force.  Some objects were easier to move than others.  A lot of the kindergarteners figured out how to make a catapult out of the objects....that was fun!

Kindergarteners Explore Forces!

Kindergarten has been learning that in order for an object to move, a force needs to be exerted on the object - a push or a pull.  We are learning about forces because during this unit, kindergarteners are going to be engineers!  They are going to use their new found knowledge about forces and build a pinball machine!

We have exerted forces on objects in the classroom.

Pulling the easel.

Pulling the door open.

Pulling the chair.

Everyone likes pulling the door open!

Smaller chairs are easier to move.

Drawing the object that was moved.

Pushing the chair with my back!

I can pull and push the chair.

The easel is hard to push!

 Next we had an object exert a force on another object.

Some objects can't pull another object very well.

Watch the craft stick move the glass marble.

The cotton ball can push the stopper.

It's hard for the pipe cleaner to move things. It's not that
strong.

The shoelace needs to be wrapped around
to move it.

After experimenting with different ways to move objects, it was time to apply our knowledge to our model pinball machine!  How can we get our pinball to move?

Sometimes the ping pong ball flies out of the
model!

Don't pull too hard on the rubber band.

The rubber band vibrates.

Keeping the ball in motion.

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Just the right amount of force.

Adjusting the placement of the ball.

Awesome!