The Friction-Action/Reaction Unit was supposed to be short. I think the suggested time was one week, but we NEVER finish anything in the suggested time frame. We have other added curriculums and distractions that we have to factor in (and I’m ADD and tend to follow rabbit trails), so we usually are between two and four times slower than the suggested time frame on any given unit. My kids still LOVE the Konos way of learning and we won’t give it up (as slow and tedious as we tend to make it).
We did this unit close to the beginning of the school year. It was about 2 weeks for us. We did these things during the unit:
KONOS VOLUME 1: OBEDIENCE… FRICTION-ACTION/REACTION UNIT
- Drew a picture of an object experiencing Friction (in Konos book)
- Played tug of war
- Practiced resisting gravity (sit ups)
- Watched a documentary on how ships move ice burgs in the sea so that they don’t cause ship-wrecks
- Did vocabulary crosswords (created them using Konos words online)
- Read some books on friction/heat from library
- Discussed behavioral “friction” and how our actions effect others
- Talked about behavioral “lubrication” through God’s Word and the fruits of His Spirit
- Learned about lubricants (played 20 questions with lubricant in mind)
- Did an inertia experiment with a rock and a piece of paper
- Tried to hold on to a glass jar with soapy wet hands
- Guessed the sources of different oils
- Did the paper-clip & string experiment with incline (also in Konos book)
- Jumped on a mini trampoline and talked about how we can use friction to help build our muscles
- Struck a match & discussed
- Learned the formula… force= speed x mass
- Rubbed our hands together to produce heat
- Talked about what kind of friction stops vehicles so we don’t crash when we get going fast.
We had plans to slide down a slide with different substances (wax paper, foil, sandpaper, etc), but never did that. We usually have a few projects and field trips that are on our list that we never get to. I keep a “Leftover” list so that we can re-visit those things we really wanted to do and never got the chance to finish. Hopefully we can do those things when we have free time in the summer… or maybe do them the next time we do the unit when they are older.
Recently, my son was playing with magnetics and he made a spinning object that spins “almost forever” on one of the magnetic balls. His daddy discussed with him the reason it will spin for so long: because of Newton’s law that says an object will stay in motion unless acted upon by a force (friction and resistance) – and he discussed how there is little friction resisting the object’s spin. That was just this week!
Upon doing a search on the internet, I also came up with these interesting sites that you could check out when planning this unit:
http://www.promotega.org/ksu30001/friction_exp.htm
http://www.at-bristol.org.uk/Newton/experiment.htm#friction
http://www.asme.org/Education/PreCollege/TeacherResources/Slow_Roller_Friction.cfm
http://www.creativitycentre.com/sciencealliance/friction2_files/frame.htm
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/physics/lesson-plan/5858.html
http://www.ed.uri.edu/smartprojects/lab3.html
http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/Education/outreach/8thgradesol/Newton3.htm
http://www.beyondbooks.com/psc91/4f.asp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/10_11/forces_action.shtml
Have fun learning about friction-action/reaction!
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Visiting from the Carnival of Homeschooling.
force = acceleration * mass
momentum = speed * mass
I suspect you had it right at the time, but anyone who’s reading you now should use the right ones! 🙂
Oops! Thanks for keeping me straight. Hopefully people will notice that little correction! 🙂