Forces and Motion

Students learn about the relationship between force and motion and the meaning of gravity, friction, magnetism, potential and kinetic energy while participating in teacher-created labs and activities.

icon/ela/white

ELA

Unit 5

3rd Grade

This unit has been archived. To view our updated curriculum, visit our 3rd Grade English Language Arts course.

Unit Summary


In this science-based unit, students explore force and motion. In the first half of the unit students learn what force is, what the relationship between force and motion is, how applying a force can affect the way an object moves, what Newton’s three laws of motion involve, and how gravity, friction, and magnetism are all forces that influence motion. Students will also learn about energy and the differences between potential and kinetic energy. In order to understand force and motion at a deep level, the structure of this unit is slightly different than other units. After reading a section of text to build content, students will participate in teacher-created labs and activities that allow for students to interact with the material hands-on. It is important to note that this unit does not always specifically prescribe activities and labs; rather, a general topic and a potential link are provided, and it is up to the teacher to make the material come to life in a way that motivates and engages students. Without the lab days, students will not be able to truly internalize the concepts they are reading. In the second half of the unit, students will use everything they have learned about force and motion to understand the forces in action with soccer, race cars, and roller coasters. Students will also begin to interact with the scientific method and participate in a few hands-on labs that require students to come up with a question and hypothesis, test the hypothesis, and then analyze the results. Through a combination of reading, labs, and research, it is our hope that students begin to build a deep understanding of force and motion and its influence on our lives.

As readers, this unit builds on to the informational skills and strategies learned in previous units. At this point it is assumed that students are able to actively read and annotate informational texts in order to build understanding of a topic. Therefore, the focus of this unit is on refining students’ ability to use different strategies to comprehend denser scientific texts. In particular, students will work on identifying and explaining cause and effect using text features to understand a text, and explaining how an author uses text features and ideas to explain different concepts. Mini-lessons and annotation focus should vary depending on individual class and student needs.

Fishtank Plus for ELA

Unlock features to optimize your prep time, plan engaging lessons, and monitor student progress.

Texts and Materials


Some of the links below are Amazon affiliate links. This means that if you click and make a purchase, we receive a small portion of the proceeds, which supports our non-profit mission.

Core Materials

Unit Prep


Essential Questions

  • What is the relationship between force and motion?
  • How does applying a force affect the way an object moves?
  • How do an object’s properties affect how the object will move when a force is applied?
  • How can magnets be used?
  • How do equal and unequal forces of an object affect the object?

Reading Enduring Understandings

  • Scientific texts are written to inform or explain a scientific concept or process. Authors often use a lot of scientific vocabulary, that is sometimes defined within the text, in order to help a reader better understand the topic.
  • Using Text Features to make meaning:
    • Bold Words: nonfiction texts often have important words written in bold. A reader’s eyes are drawn to these bold words because they are important or new vocabulary for the topic. You can often find the bold words in the glossary or index and they are always important to note. Sometimes authors also define the bold words in context.
    • Authors include diagrams and images to help a reader better understand a particular scientific concept. Not everything written in the text will always be in a diagram, and some diagrams contain information that is not included in the text. Some diagrams also include information that is more important than others. Readers need to interpret and decode graphics and images in order to determine the main idea of a text.
  • When describing the relationship between scientific ideas, concepts or processes authors often use language that pertains to time, sequence, or cause/effect.
  • The goal of science is to explain things in the natural world. Things in the world happen for a reason, there is a cause for every effect. The cause explains why something happens, and the effect is a description of what happened.

The focus of this unit is on refining students’ ability to use different strategies to comprehend denser scientific texts. In particular, students will focus on identifying and explaining cause and effect relationship. Students will need to rely on a combination of key-vocabulary, the text, and text-features to describe key cause and effect relationships.

Writing Focus Areas

Informational Writing Focus Areas

  • Selects the most relevant text-based details and examples to support the claim
  • Includes a variety of text-based evidence to support each reason (facts, examples, quotations, micro-stories, information)
  • Uses words and phrases to connect different parts of the pieces together

At this point in the year, all target writing focus areas and rubric rows have been taught. With remediation and small-group instruction, most students should be at a 3 on the majority of rubric rows. Therefore, the focus of this unit is on pushing students from a 3 to a 4, particularly in regards to elaboration and details. In this unit, students should be pushed to include the most relevant text-based details and examples to support the claim. Providing any evidence, even if it is close, is no longer sufficient. Students should also be challenged to think about what it means to provide evidence. At this point students are most familiar with providing evidence that is a direct quotation from the text followed by two to three sentences of explanation. This, however, is not the only form of providing and explaining evidence that students should be familiar with, and oftentimes providing one text-based quotation limits a student’s understanding and explanation of a topic. Therefore, students should also know how to and be encouraged to include facts, examples, micro-stories, and information that supports the overall claim.

An additional focus of this unit is on using words and phrases to connect different parts of the essay. Up to this point students have used transition words as a way of linking evidence. In this unit students should think about the ways in which they can use transition words to help shift from reasons to evidence or as a way to introduce a new point. Students should also use transition words as a way to show the overall structure and order of the text.

Vocabulary

Text-based

force, push, pull, friction, gravity, inertia, mass, momentum, exert, weight, mass, sliding friction, rolling friction, fluid friction, magnetism, poles, repel, attract, work, potential energy, kinetic energy, air resistance, scientific method, hypothesis, speed, velocity

Content Knowledge and Connections

  • Forces and motion are integral parts of our daily lives.
  • A force is anything that can push or pull an object.
  • Forces influence objects that are at rest or that are already in motion.
  • Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion describe how forces interact with objects to influence motion. The laws include inertia, mass, velocity, and momentum.
  • Gravity, friction, and magnetism are important forces.
  • Generating a force requires energy. Energy can be stored as potential energy or as kinetic energy.

Future Fishtank ELA Connections

Supporting All Students

In order to ensure that all students are able to access the texts and tasks in this unit, it is incredibly important to intellectually prepare to teach the unit prior to launching the unit. Use the intellectual preparation protocol and the Unit Launch to determine which support students will need. To learn more, visit the Supporting all Students teacher tool.

Lesson Map


Common Core Standards


Core Standards

3-5-ETS1-1
3-5-ETS1-2
3-PS2-1
L.3.1
L.3.2
L.3.4
L.3.5
L.3.6
RF.3.4
RI.3.2
RI.3.3
RI.3.4
RI.3.7
RI.3.8
RI.3.10
SL.3.1
SL.3.4
SL.3.6
W.3.1
W.3.2
W.3.4
W.3.5
W.3.10

Request a Demo

See all of the features of Fishtank in action and begin the conversation about adoption.

Learn more about Fishtank Learning School Adoption.

Contact Information

School Information

What courses are you interested in?

ELA

Math

Are you interested in onboarding professional learning for your teachers and instructional leaders?

Yes

No

Any other information you would like to provide about your school?

Effective Instruction Made Easy

Effective Instruction Made Easy

Access rigorous, relevant, and adaptable ELA lesson plans for free