It is important that the environment set up for young children, both indoors and outdoors, should enable them to be active in their learning.
The outdoor area in particular offers children opportunities for physical explorations on a large scale and is an ideal location for learning about the effects of forces.
In the Foundation Stage, scientific learning is about investigations that take place in the context of children's play and many discoveries result from self-initiated explorations. In planning the learning environment, adults can offer resources and experiences that motivate children to 'find out'. If children are able to develop ideas and concepts related to forces in various areas of provision, they will begin to make connections in their learning, leading to a deeply embedded understanding.
In physics, force relates to movement, acceleration and pressure. On the BBC schools sites a force is defined as 'a push, pull or turn which changes the movement or the shape of things; measured in Newtons (N)'. (See www.
bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/physics/forces/forcesandmovementrev3.shtml) For children in the Foundation Stage, this means exploring, for example, how a wheeled vehicle pulling a cart moves in the outdoor area. What causes it to slow down or speed up? The gradient? The weight of its load? Friction? The level of exertion on the part of its driver? Or a big push from other children? As for pressure, children can explore how the level of force applied to, say, dough, affects its shape.
Forces are difficult for children - and often practitioners - to understand, but through challenging questioning, practitioners can begin to develop in children some appreciation of movement and pressure (see box, page 22).
Approach
Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (page 11) emphasises the importance of providing children with a balance of adult-led and child-initiated learning. This project therefore:
* identifies adult-led activities to introduce or develop children's understanding of the topic through stimulating, meaningful experiences which offer challenge
* suggests ways to enhance areas of core provision to consolidate children's learning about the theme. It is the practitioner's role to observe children's learning daily to inform individual children's Profiles and future planning. Children should be encouraged to use available resources to support their own learning, so the possible learning outcomes will be wide-ranging and varied for each child
* advocates that settings should be organised using a 'workshop' approach so that children can access the resources available autonomously and independently.
Adult-led activities
Back and forth
Provide resources that will encourage the children to explore the forces that affect movement. Support their developing understanding through carefully framed questions.
Key learning intentions
To explore the effects of forces on movement
To comment on observations and ask questions about why things happen
Adult:child ratio 1:4
Resources
* A collection of toy vehicles (including some that can carry loads, such as dumper trucks and car transporters) * planks * plastic guttering * ramps * supports (for example, blocks, boxes) * sandpaper * corrugated card * string * 'challenge cards'.
Challenge cards
Use challenge cards as prompts for adults as they interact with and question children and as a starting point for motivating children to investigate and problem solve. Challenge cards should encourage children to experiment, predict, plan and question. For example:
* Push the car gently across the carpet. How can you make it go faster? What happens when you push it harder? What happens when you push it on a smooth surface? Try pushing the car on corrugated cardboard - what do you think will happen?
* Put the plank flat on the carpet. How hard do you need to push the car to make it reach the end of the plank? Now raise the plank at one end. How hard do you need to push it now to make it reach the end? Was it easier or harder to do? Do you think you will be able to push the car from the bottom to the top of the plank? How?
* Push the empty digger to the other side of the carpet. Now fill the digger with pebbles and push it back again. Was it easier or more difficult to push when loaded with pebbles? What happens if you just give the loaded digger a gentle push? Now take out the pebbles. What happens this time when you give the digger a gentle push?
* Which car needs the least amount of force (the smallest push) for it to reach the other side of the carpet and which needs the most? Why do you think that is?
Preparation
* Make sure that all team members understand what is meant in scientific terms by the word 'forces'. Raise staff awareness of the purpose of the 'challenge cards'.
* Provide plenty of room for this activity. The construction area will probably be the most accommodating and may also offer useful resources to support investigations.
Activity content
* Introduce the resources to children and encourage exploration of these.
* Play alongside children, interacting as appropriate to extend and challenge their thinking.
* Outcomes will vary according to the children's individual ideas, interests and stage of development.
Extending learning
Key vocabulary
Push, pull, rough, smooth, harder, gently, slow, fast.
Questions to ask
See: 'Challenge cards'.
Extension ideas
* Display prompt question cards as part of the permanent provision in the construction/small-world areas.
* Provide equipment in the outdoor area that enables children to explore the concepts of movement as a result of 'pushing' and 'pulling' (see 'Outdoor area').
* Introduce an interactive display of toys with a focus on 'pushing' and 'pulling', including items such as a Jack-in-the-Box, pull-along wheeled toys, water pumps.
Child-initiated learning
To and fro
Consider the opportunities for supporting children's developing understanding of 'pushing' and 'pulling' through everyday activities and the children's use of equipment in areas of provision.
For example, opening and shutting drawers and doors and using tools and materials such as a hole punch will engage children in a simple learning experience about the effects of forces. Also, pushing together and pulling apart components when using construction kits requires children to find out how much force needs to be exerted to join two pieces together. Use all such occasions as opportunities to model language related to forces such as 'push hard' and 'pull gently' and 'push upwards' and 'pull downwards'.
Outdoor area
Enable children to explore forces further through self-initiated play.
Additional resources and adult support
* Provide push-along equipment to support role play. For example, pushchairs, shopping trolleys and lawn mowers. Also provide pull-along toys. Play alongside the children, using key vocabulary such as 'push' and 'pull'.
* When ordering new equipment, consider buying a trike with a passenger trailer, a rocker boat or a 'cycle rower' that works on a push/pull principle.
* Provide ropes and large cardboard boxes - perhaps to be used as 'trailers' with wheeled toys such as bikes or scooters. Support children in working safely and creatively.
* Encourage the children to use wheelbarrows, long-handled sweeping brushes and rakes in their play and during gardening activities.
* Introduce wheeled storage trolleys (for example, for equipment such as hoops, balls, beanbags and wooden bricks) into the outdoor area and plan for these to become part of the children's 'tidy-up' routine.
* Provide resources such as tyres and crates and encourage the children to find effective ways of moving them.
* Provide planks and encourage the children to build ramps. Cardboard wedges salvaged from packaging also make effective ramps.
* Fill an empty ice-cream carton full of water and place one end of a length of string in the water before putting in the freezer. When frozen, turn out the large ice cube (with a string 'lead') and give to the children to pull around the outdoor area.
* Provide chalk and support the children in marking routes and directional arrows.
* Talk with them about their plans and observations.
* Talk with them about safety in terms of their awareness of speed, direction and friction as they move around the area.
* Ask challenging questions such as: How could we move this box from here to there? What will happen if you push too hard? Is it easier or harder to pull when it is full? What happens if two of us pull it? What happens when you ride wheeled toys down the ramps? Is it easier or harder to push a heavy/light load in the cart? Can you pull two children in the cart? What happens to the ball if you kick it harder?
Play possibilities
* Finding different ways of making wheeled toys move.
* Experimenting with pushing and pulling objects over different surfaces.
* Sweeping up, for example, sand or grass, pushing them into heaps, collecting them in the wheelbarrow and pushing the barrow from area to area.
* Pulling/pushing the storage trolley around the outdoor area collecting equipment.
* Taking on roles and developing imaginative ideas - for example, taking baby for a walk in the pushchair.
* Making trailers out of boxes and attaching these to bikes using rope.
* Pulling items in trailers around the outdoor area.
* Making water patterns on concrete as they pull the melting ice along the ground.
Possible learning outcomes
Works co-operatively, pushing and pulling to make things move
Makes patterns in experience through linking cause and effect
Uses talk to clarify thinking and ideas
Uses language such as 'heavy', 'light', 'long' and 'short' and is developing mathematical ideas to solve practical problems
Makes predictions, suggesting why things happen and how things work
Adjusts speed or direction to avoid obstacles
Uses role play as a vehicle for exploring concepts and introduces a storyline into play
Makes props to support role play
Malleable materials
Raise the children's awareness of how forces can make things change shape.
Additional resources and adult support
* Provide dough on a continuous basis over a period of time.
* Involve the children in making dough and trying out different recipes.
* Make bread with the children, allowing them plenty of time for kneading the dough.
* Ask questions such as: How far do you think you will be able to pull the dough before it breaks? What happens if you press down hard/gently on the dough?
* Provide commercially produced tools such as dough extruders, stampers, rolling pins, rollers, cutters, moulds, plastic knives and modelling tools.
* Provide found objects such as cotton reels, buttons, shells and encourage the children to use these to make imprints.
* Model the use of tools to create a variety of effects.
* Model the use of appropriate language such as 'press', 'pull' and 'push'.
* Encourage the children to explore the effects of pressure on a variety of materials, for example, handling clay or pressing pencils into soap.
Play possibilities
* Mixing ingredients to make dough.
* Modifying recipes to make dough more 'stretchy'.
* Manipulating the dough using hands and tools. For example, pulling, stretching, rolling, squeezing, pinching and pressing it.
* Making representational models.
* Making props to support imaginative/ role play (for example, sausages to put in a frying pan or sandwiches for a picnic).
* Imprinting using a range of objects.
* Creating patterns using imprints and objects in dough. Exploring the effects of applying varying amounts of pressure on resulting imprints.
* Exploring the effects of squeezing dough through extruders with different shaped holes.
Possible learning outcomes
Uses mathematical language to describe size, pattern and 2/3D shapes
Observes and comments on changes that take place when materials are mixed and heated
Shows an awareness of the effects of force
Talks about the effects of pushing and pulling the dough
Handles malleable materials with increasing control