The theme for Poppins Book Nook this month is Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (Grab your free lapbook for April from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom).
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In the wake of a very scary accident my friend Christine had with her daughter, I thought that a good topic and experiment would be this one to show my kids exactly why we wear seat belts in the car. With summer coming up, I also wanted a reminder of why we don't leave rock-hard Nalgene water bottles all over the car after swimming lessons!
We borrowed the books below from the library. Max Axiom was a particular hit but they were all excellent reads! They gave explanations about forces and motion that satisfied both my 13 year old and my 6 year old.
I got this car crash physics experiment from our Supercharged Science curriculum. Here's what you need:
A car
A licensed driver
A tennis ball
Have your child sit in the back seat and put the tennis ball beside them (don't put it on the floor, as it might roll forward under, say, the brake pedal).
See how it moves on the seat as the car moves? Can they feel themselves moving the same way?
Drive along, not too fast, then stop suddenly in a safe place - warn your passengers first. What does the ball do? (The reason you don't go too fast is that you're probably not fond of tennis-ball shaped holes in your windshield!)
Explain to your child that everything in the car is moving at the same speed (for older students, that means it all has the same inertia.) When the car stops, everything in the car continues forward at that same rate of speed until it hits something that stops it. If the car turns, the ball keeps going in the same direction it had been going until it hits something that stops it.
We had trouble capturing the tennis ball in full flight, so we also repeated this with a stuffed animal at kid-head level.You can see it in the cover image.
Ask your child what happens if they are un-seatbelted and moving at 100kms/hr on the highway. Now imagine that the car stops. What would happen to them? Yep. That's why we wear seatbelts.
Don't miss all the great and varied posts along the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles theme from my co-hosts! And link up your own posts below.
Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy ~ Learning and Growing the Piwi Way ~ The Usual Mayhem~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Monsters Ed Homeschool Academy ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ Kathy's Cluttered Mind ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Our Crafts N Things ~ Hopkins Homeschool ~ ABC Creative Learning ~ Joy Focused Learning ~ P is for Preschooler ~ Laugh and Learn ~ A Mommy's Adventures ~ Inspiring 2 New Hampshire Children ~ World for Learning ~ The Kennedy Adventures ~ Ever After in the Woods ~ Golden Grasses ~ Our Simple Kinda Life ~ A glimpse of our life ~ Journey to Excellence ~ Happy Little Homemaker ~ Little Homeschool Blessings ~ Simplicity Breeds Happiness ~ Raventhreads ~ Water on the Floor ~ Learning Fundamentals ~ Tots and Me ~ As We Walk Along The Road ~ Stir the Wonder ~ For This Season ~ Where Imagination Grows ~ Lextin Academy ~ The Canadian Homeschooler ~ School Time Snippets ~ Peakle Pie ~ Mom's Heart ~ A Moment in our World ~ Every Bed of Roses ~ Finchnwren ~ At Home Where Life Happens ~ Suncoast Momma ~ The Library Adventure ~ Embracing Destiny ~ Day by Day in our World ~ Our Homeschool Studio ~ A "Peace" of Mind ~ Thou Shall Not Whine ~ SAHM I am ~ eLeMeNo-P Kids ~ Simple Living Mama
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