Real Life Classroom Physics Lesson | Lets Go Caravan and Camping

Real Life Classroom Physics Lesson

< Inspiration / Category: Featured Bloggers / Tags: Real Life Classroom Tasmania Travel with Kids

Hello Everyone! I’m Jules from Travelling Family Circus, ambassadors of the Real Life Classroom. I’m so excited to have you along with us as we share our experiences and adventures.

There are so many opportunities for learning through travel. The best part is that learning on the road is fun. The kids don’t realise that they are being educated! As the first and foremost educators of our kids, we get to share those ultimate, amazing, memory making, real life classroom adventures with them.

In saying all of this, I thought it would be fun to share with you the first lesson we planned with our kids when we landed in beautiful Tasmania. With the kids having been seated for a good majority of the morning – travelling from Sydney to Tassie – there was a lot of pent up energy!

Everyone loves a jumping pillow, so what better way to give the kids a “crash course” in physics than in the playground?!?!… and the Discovery Park here in Hobart was just the place to do it!

Our lesson for today – Newton’s Laws of Motion!

Before we started each activity, we asked the kids to predict what is going to happen for each scenario. Predicting helps kids pay attention to the result! Here we go!

1. The law of Inertia

Objects tend to keep on doing what they’re doing unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. So here, Saxon is lying still on the jumping pillow. He will remain still, until a force is applied by his brother to roll him across the top of the jumping pillow to change his motion.

2. Mass & Force, Acceleration

The second law shows that if you exert the same force on two objects of a different mass (eg – a big kid and little kid), you will get different accelerations (changes in motion). So, we got Saxon to sit on the jumping pillow and asked the boys what they thought would happen if Aiden jumped beside him. They guessed right! Aiden is heavier so when he jumped beside Saxon – there he goes – bouncing up and away!

3. Every Action Has An Equal And Opposite Reaction

The third law shows that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Forces are found in pairs. Here, we got Baz and Aiden to jump towards each other and give a (rather un-co) double “hi – 5”. As they met, they instantly re – bounded away from each other.

Some other laws you can have a little fun with are:

Friction: A force that holds back the movement of a sliding object. You can use a slippery dip for this one too!

Gravity: A classic that everyone knows “what goes up, must come down” is a great activity for the jumping pillow!

Kinetic Energy: Using the swings are great for this activity!

This is a fun and simple way for kids to get practical, hands on learning experiences in the laws of physics. Oh, and GET THIS! They will (hopefully) be so exhausted that they will be ready for a good night sleep!… And… Ehhh… If you are an athletic giant like me (A-hem…) you will find muscles, you never knew you had!

We have a video showing some of the fun we had with putting these laws into action – so click here to watch and have a go for yourselves! Thanks for joining us and we look forward to seeing you on our next adventure!

What’s Next?

Click here to read more about the Real Life Classroom journey in Tasmania.

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