Assess students’ understanding about how things move or go and the causes.

• Make observations while circulating around the room, seeing whether students are engaged with the introductory discussions. Make notes of student responses throughout your observation.

• Use the following checklist to assess students’ progress:

• The student can work together with a partner to move the car.

• The student can contribute to the transportation discussion.

• The student is able to classify pictures of different kinds of transportation and how they move.

• Individually assess how students describe their inventions, or have them present in front of the class. Ask them to name and describe their invention.

Have students sit in a circle and sing the “Wheels on the Bus” song (S-K2-2-2_Wheels on the Bus Lyrics.doc). After singing, ask students why the wheels impacted how the car moved. Take a piece of masking tape and make a line on the floor with it. Now show students a toy car (match box cars work fine) and place it on the floor. Ask students, “Is the car is moving? How can the car get to the line of tape?” Have students discuss how they would get the car to the tape.

Ask students: “How can you make a bicycle go faster? How can you make a bicycle go slower? We can say “to slow an object or make it go faster you must change the force.”

Review the definitions of force and motion and refer to the student definitions from Lesson 1. Share the fact that we need to do something in order for the car to move. Brainstorm ideas on how you would move the car. Then have individual students or groups, depending on the number of toy cars, demonstrate in front of the class how they would move their car. Pose questions to the group and the class once they have finished.

• “What kind of motion did they demonstrate?” Push, pull, slide, roll . . . etc.?

• “How might they make it move faster or slower?”

• “What about their car makes it slower or faster?”

Gather students’ ideas and display them on a poster or the chalkboard. You can also challenge students to see if they can make the car move slower or faster. Challenge them to think of ways to make this happen. For example, build a ramp. Reintroduce the words force and motion. Come together to draw conclusions from the experiment.

Activity 1

Introduce the word transportation. Have students brainstorm different kinds of transportation. Make a list on the board. Use transportation pictures to help students identify the different kinds. Also discuss the purpose of the different kinds of transportation.

Explain that different kinds of transportation operate in air, on land, and in water. Show children pictures of different kinds of transportation (S-K2-2-2_Transportation Sorting Table.docx). Have children cut out the transportation pictures and glue the pictures under the correct category. For example, a plane would travel by air. Ask: “What makes an airplane move?” Have students work individually or with partners to complete this task. Once children have completed the task, have them compare their answers with another student and justify their answers.

Activity 2

Discuss with students how they come to school. Ask students how they would go to Hershey Park, Disneyland, or any place students are familiar with. Tell students they are going on a pretend trip. Discuss with students what they would take on their trip and how they would travel. Listen to students as they discuss the different forms of transportation they would use to travel.

During the last 10 minutes left in the lesson, have students explain how their invention moves and what purpose it has. Have students share this information with another student or the whole group. Then display the inventions. Review the vocabulary learned in this lesson. Refer back to the beginning activity with the toy car and how the car needed some sort of force to make it move. Have students share something they learned in the lesson.

Extension:

• Students who are going beyond the standards can explore speed and how they can manipulate their cars.

• Students going beyond the standards can invent a new form of transportation and make models of their inventions.

• Students who might need opportunities for additional learning can look through various magazines and cut out pictures that show an object that is moving. Students may classify the pictures into slow and fast, or a push or pull.