May the Force Be With You: Teaching Force and Motion

Happy May the Fourth Be With You Day!

I just wanted to quickly share how I used this Star Wars based day to teach force and motion to my class.  

We dedicated the entire morning to exploring force and it how it works via hands-on centers.

First, we talked about our science vocabulary:

force motion push pull

The objective at each center was to discover if and how you used force. They also explored what was the reaction based upon the force used. 

Our centers:

1. Launch Star Wars Angry Birds using various catapults
2. Build a domino maze and knock it down
3. Give stuffed animals a ride on a train
4. Bowling
5. Car races using different ramps and types of cars
6. Use Playdoh shapes to push and pull

We also went outside and pushed each other on the swings and tried to do a pull up on the monkey bars.  Had time permitted, we would have pretended to ride on a roller coaster using the fun GoNoodle video.

It was a great day of learning.  How do you teach force and motion to your kindergarten students?