Simple Machines

"The students felt really smart applying their knowledge about simple machines in a real life situation."
— Karen Soto, second grader teacher

Workshop Overview: The Simple Machines workshop provides children with the opportunity to engage in hands-on activities that explore the force and motion of the six simple machines in a variety of wet and wacky ways. Using play as learning, children will develop creative thinking and problem solving skills, work cooperatively, form hypotheses, and experiment through trial and error.

Simple Machines Curriculum Guide

Grade Level: 2-5

Illinois State Learning Standards: State and Early Childhood Goals: 4, 9, 11, 12D, 13B, 21

Workshop Goals and Objectives:
Students will:

• Participate in a discussion of simple machines, including how they make work easier.
• Collaborate with group members to design a unique golf ball moving contraption.
• Use the scientific method to form hypotheses and test, modify, and retest their inventions.
• Try moving water using a variety of simple machines including pulleys and wheels and axles.
• Identify cause and effect relationships between friction, force, gravity and motion.
• Exercise creative and critical thinking skills, identifying how both are useful.

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