English

Class 4 - Science - Forces

We have made a great start to the spring term gaining knowledge about the forces all around us, learning that pushes and pulls are examples of such, and that forces are needed to start and stop things and to change their speed and/or direction. We used practical investigations to illustrate these points, setting up a seesaw using a ruler as the lever and a glue stick as the fulcrum. A ball of paper was placed on one end of the ruler, the other end was struck with a fist and the paper flew into the air – we noted the downward force (strike), the upward force (push) and the force of gravity which brought the ball of paper back to the ground. Working in pairs, one member of the team used the force exerted by their hand to change the direction of the ball of paper. We had a lot of tidying up to do afterwards!