Video Lessons

Push and Pull Forces: What Makes Things Move?

Summary

Grade Range

Kindergarten

Group Size

2-3 students

Active Time

40 minutes

Total Time

40 minutes

Area of Science

Physics

Key Concepts

Pushes, pulls, motion, forces

Credits

Sabine De Brabandere, PhD, Science Buddies Alumni

Video narration by Jennifer E Paz

Pricing

Free for a limited time thanks to individual donors

Video Lesson

Image credit: "strike!" by Tinou Bao is licensed under CC BY 2.0 from Flickr

Overview

Kindergarten students are used to moving objects. They throw balls, roll toy cars, and sweep the floor, but how much do they think about the forces behind these movements? In this fun hands-on lesson, students will use a game (rolling balls) to explore how pushing and pulling affects an object's motion.

Learning Objectives

Discover how pushes and pulls create motion.
Describe how an object will move when a push or pull is applied to it.
Explain that to start, stop or change an objects' motion, it needs a push or a pull.

Materials

Per group:

One ball; tennis balls, or similarly sized balls, work best.

Prep Work (10 minutes)

Collect enough balls so that there is one for each group.
Make space so students can sit on the ground across from each other in groups of two or three.

Engage (4 minutes)

In this video students are shown everyday examples of moving objects and asked to think about what objects they move and how they do it.

Explore (32 minutes)

In this video, students are led through a series of ball-rolling experiments to discover how applying pushes and pulls can start or stop an object's motion.

Reflect (4 minutes)

This video summarizes for students everything they have discovered about how pulls and pushes create motion. It also shows them real world examples of pushes and pulls, including how natural forces, like wind, can create pushes and pulls that move objects such as kites, sailboats, and wind turbines.

NGSS Alignment

This lesson helps students prepare for these Next Generation Science Standards Performance Expectations:

K-PS2-1. Plan and conduct an investigation to compare the effects of different strengths or different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object.

This lesson focuses on these aspects of NGSS Three Dimensional Learning:

Science & Engineering Practices

Planning and Carrying Out Investigations. With guidance, plan and conduct an investigation in collaboration with peers.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

PS2.A: Forces and Motion. Pushing or pulling on an object can change the speed or direction of its motion and can start or stop it.

Crosscutting Concepts

Cause and Effect. Simple tests can be designed to gather evidence to support or refute student ideas about causes.

Assess

Assessment options and a rubric can be found in this file (PDF).
You can also use this worksheet to access if students can identify the difference between a pull and a push.

Extensions

Playing a game of tug-of-war is a fun way to show that pulling makes a rope move. It can also demonstrate the effect of pulling on the same object in opposite directions, and the cumulative effect of several people pulling in the same direction.
Read the picture book Equal Shmequal by Virginia Kroll and illustrated by Philomena O'Neill for another fun look at how an equal pull in tug-of-war is not always the same thing as having an equal number of players on each side.
For more videos how the forces in pushes and pulls lead to motion, try Force, Push and Pull, created by Ms. Egan and her class, or Force and Motion, from Science Video for Kids.

Lesson Plans

Push, Pull and Weight

Lesson Plan Grade: Kindergarten

Experimenting with balls is fun! In this hands-on lesson, you and your students will make them collide and study how balls can push each-other and people too! While exploring, students will also feel how pushing a light ball is different from pushing a heavier ball. Weight is important. This lesson fits well together with a lesson where students push balls to discover how people use pushes and pulls to change motion. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

K-PS2-1. Plan and conduct an investigation to compare the effects of different strengths or different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object.

Careers

Physicist

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Physicists have a big goal in mind—to understand the nature of the entire universe and everything in it! To reach that goal, they observe and measure natural events seen on Earth and in the universe, and then develop theories, using mathematics, to explain why those phenomena occur. Physicists take on the challenge of explaining events that happen on the grandest scale imaginable to those that happen at the level of the smallest atomic particles. Their theories are then applied to… Read more

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