I got to spend the morning with 4 3rd grade classes at Eastern Greene Elementary. They are studying Forces & Motion and we talked about why things move or why they stop. They shared about pushes and pulls and gravity, I talked about balanced and unbalanced forces. We even got in a little bit about friction.
Then they made cars that rolled to explore those ideas more. I had precut cardboard wheels and 4″x6″ cardboard chassis. Cars are always difficult because something needs to spin in order for it to roll. I like using pieces of straw on the bottom and a wooden skewer through those as an axle. Then attach the cardboard to the axle. Often people glue the axle to the chassis.
The discussion took about 15 minutes, so they only had 30 minutes to build. Only a few got a rolling vehicle done. Hopefully they can finish in their classroom.
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