The Chronicles Of Nay

Happy Tuesday! I hope everybody had a good weekend and a good start to your week. I had a pretty exciting weekend I went to the mad scientist ball always a good time! A fun night, a new lab coat, and a good time with good people!

So Friday and yesterday (because b-day, a-day) I started my Force unit. And I always introduce it by talking about getting a new fridge. I tell the kids that I bought a new fridge over the weekend and when they came to deliver it a very scrawny guy came and he couldn’t move it and then he gets a buddy who’s also very scrawny and he couldn’t move it. Then enters a bigger guy that can move it and I tell them that you know I never realized how much my life had to do with science until I became a science teacher. Now I see science lessons all the time! So I use this story to really introduce net force. So we talk about the two scrawny guys one pushing one pulling so you add their Force together and then I move on to talk about tug of war so pulling an absent directions you subtract Force. And then finally I make up a story about me and my brother both pushing something so we would also subtract Force there too if we are pushing toward each other.

So I use the same stories every year because they’re such a visual that explain how net force works and instead of just being like Oh yeah you add them you subtract them. We kind of talk through why you add or why it makes sense to subtract. So last year I was talking to the ladies in the main office about my force unit. I was like yeah talking about my new fridge story and probably how some one in class said something funny. An eighth grader who was sitting behind the desk as an office assistant looks at me and goes “Wow Ms!! You got a new fridge when I was in 6th grade too!” I was just like “yeah… I am hard on fridges…”

It was cute! This was something I never had to think about when we were at the 6th grade campus because I was not around my former students much! just wanted to share a little chuckle with you!