edHelper.com
Forces and Motion
 Forces Around Us

Forces Around Us
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 3 to 4
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   3.45

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    directly, opposite, working, direction, gravity, amount, bits, against, surface, exactly, heat, already, balls, around, between, toward

Print Forces Around Us
     Print Forces Around Us  (font options, pick words for additional puzzles, and more)

Quickly Print - PDF format
     Quickly Print: PDF (2 columns per page)
     Quickly Print: PDF (full page)

Quickly Print - HTML format
     Quickly Print: HTML

Proofreading Activity
     Print a proofreading activity

Feedback on Forces Around Us
     Leave your feedback on Forces Around Us  (use this link if you found an error in the story)

Forces Around Us
By Cindy Grigg 		  
1     Look around you, and chances are you'll see things moving. Cars move. People move. Elevators move up and down in tall buildings. Shopping carts move around in supermarkets. Balls fly through the air when they are thrown. You might not think about why these things move. Cars, elevators, and balls don't just move by themselves. Something is making them move. Forces make things move.
 
2     A force is a push or a pull. If you had a heavy box to move across your room, you might push it or pull it. The force would be working on the box in the same direction. It wouldn't matter to the box if you pushed it or pulled it. The amount of force needed to move the box would be the same. The direction of the force would also be the same.
 
3     When you push or pull a box, it is easy to see where the force is coming from. But it's harder to see forces at work when we think about a person or an animal moving. When you walk across the room, what force is making you move?
 
4     When you take a step, your foot is pushing down on the floor. That push is the force that makes your body move. When your foot pushes down on the floor, the floor pushes back. If the floor didn't push back, your foot wouldn't stop pushing down. You wouldn't go anywhere. You might end up standing in a hole.

Paragraphs 5 to 11:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable
Copyright © 2009 edHelper