Forces and Magnets

#TheCompleteSeries5lessons

This ready-to-teach Forces and Magnets Year 3 planning pack contains everything you need to deliver these fun, practical lessons, including lesson plans, slides, activity ideas, differentiated worksheets, challenges and many other resources. It's enough to make your Science teaching truly magnetic!

#Lesson1PushesandPulls

The first lesson in this Push and Pull Forces Year 3 series reviews what your class already know about forces, looking specifically at pushes and pulls, and helps them to identify which direction forces are acting in. They will also explore how some forces need contact between objects.

This downloadable ready-to-teach lesson contains a lesson plan, slideshow presentation and printable teaching resources.

#Lesson2ComparingMovement

This Year 3 Forces lesson starts by exploring what a force meter is and how they work. Your class can then undertake a variety of practical enquiries to explore how different surfaces affect how an object will move across that surface, introducing the idea of friction.

This downloadable lesson contains a lesson plan, slideshow presentation and printable teaching resources.

#Lesson3ExploringMagnets

This Year 3 Magnets lesson starts by exploring the contact needed by different objects for certain push and pull forces to work. It then explores how magnetic forces are able to act at a distance.

After exploring exactly what magnets are, your class can then investigate what happens when the poles of magnets are put together in different combinations. Will they attract or repel?

This downloadable lesson contains a lesson plan, slideshow presentation and teaching resources.

#Lesson4MagneticMaterials

Now that your class know that magnets can attract or repel each other, they can now explore which other materials are affected by magnetic forces. Your class will investigate a variety of different materials to identify whether or not they are magnetic. There is the opportunity to go magnet fishing too!

This downloadable lesson contains a lesson plan, slideshow presentation and printable teaching resources.

#Lesson5UsesforMagnets

The final lesson in this series gives your class the chance to explore how magnets are used in everyday life. They will look at objects such as credit cards and maglev trains, exploring how magnetic forces help us out in a variety of ways.

This downloadable lesson contains a lesson plan, slideshow presentation and printable teaching resources.

Free Overview (Medium-Term Plan)

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Free Assessment Grid

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Curriculum Objectives covered

• Year 3 - asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
• Year 3 - setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
• Year 3 - making systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers
• Year 3 - recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts, and tables
• Year 3 - reporting on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions
• Year 3 - using results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
• Year 3 - using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings
• Year 3 - compare how things move on different surfaces
• Year 3 - notice that some forces need contact between two objects, but magnetic forces can act at a distance
• Year 3 - observe how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others
• Year 3 - compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet, and identify some magnetic materials
• Year 3 - describe magnets as having two poles
• Year 3 - predict whether two magnets will attract or repel each other, depending on which poles are facing