Balanced and Unbalanced Forces

About this resource

Balanced or unbalanced? This is a complete kit for one idea, built for the table where children need different amounts of support. It starts with an anchor chart: when two arrows are the same size and point opposite ways, the forces are balanced and nothing changes; when one arrow is bigger, or there is only one arrow, the forces are unbalanced and the object starts to move. Children then circle arrow pictures, find the one that does not belong, count a tray of pictures, finish sentences from a box of words, read a short scene and circle the true sentence, draw the arrows for a scene, and cut and paste onto sort mats. The pictures are arrow shapes and the scenes are short sentences, so a child reads or looks and decides. It comes with a tracker, a class grid and a family update, so nothing has to be written from scratch.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (30 pages)

• 15 student pages in 9 page types: Anchor Chart, My Arrow Mat, Circle It, Which One Does Not Belong?, Count the Groups, Fill It In, Circle the True Sentence, Draw the Arrows, and Cut and Paste
• 62 scored items on 13 pages, every answer read from the scene and arrow data, never typed by hand
• 16 invented scenes (8 balanced, 8 unbalanced), each with its own arrow picture: a rope, a door, a sled, a swing, a lamp and more
• 24 cut-and-paste pieces on 3 sort mats (8 arrow pictures, 8 short sentences, 8 full sentences), each into two labeled boxes
• 2 answer keys, generated from the same data as the student pages
• 1 tracker (page, page type, items right, date) and 1 whole-class progress grid
• 1 team note (a hand-off page between team meetings) and 1 home page
• 1 filled example (an invented student), 1 phrase bank (16 observable-language starters), 1 binder cover and 6 divider tabs with a spine label to cut out
• Start Here and a how-to-read-a-page page

The Page Types, Easiest First

1. Anchor Chart (starting): balanced and unbalanced shown as arrow pictures with a one-line meaning and an example each, a card for the single arrow, six words to know, and two lines for the child to write what each word means.

2. My Arrow Mat (starting): three arrow pictures to keep beside the child (same size, one bigger, only one), a sentence to finish, and two big boxes to draw arrows of their own.

3. Circle It, 2 pages (1 dot): four rows of four arrow pictures. Circle every balanced picture (or every unbalanced one), then write how many. One page for each group.

4. Which One Does Not Belong?, 2 pages (2 or 3 dots): four pictures, one is the other kind. Set A circles it and writes its number; Set B uses short sentences and also writes what the other three are.

5. Count the Groups, 2 pages (2 dots): eight arrow pictures in a tray. Count the balanced and the unbalanced, then draw one of each.

6. Fill It In, 2 pages (2 or 3 dots): Set A reads a scene and writes balanced or unbalanced; Set B finishes a sentence from a box of eight words (three are not used).

7. Circle the True Sentence, 1 page (3 dots): a scene and three sentences about it; exactly one is true.

8. Draw the Arrows, 1 page (3 dots): read a scene and draw its arrows in a box with the object already in the middle.

9. Cut and Paste, 3 pages (1, 2 or 3 dots): a big two-box sort mat and a block of 8 pieces that touch edge to edge, so cutting is a few straight lines. Paste 1 sorts arrow pictures; Paste 2 sorts short sentences; Paste 3 sorts full sentences.

Arrow Shapes And Words, Nothing Else

There are no photographs or clip art. The only drawing is a gray square and one or two arrows, drawn as shapes. The same rule decides every picture in the file: two arrows the same size on opposite sides are balanced; two arrows of different sizes, or one arrow alone, are unbalanced. There are no numbers, units or formulas to learn.

Built For The Child Holding The Page

A big "My name" line, one short instruction, large rounded type, big answer boxes, and dots (not words or colors) to show which level a page is. Nothing on a student page is written for an adult. The drawing boxes are about two inches tall so there is room to work. The file prints clean in black and white.

No Guessing The Answer

Wherever a child picks among printed spots (which pictures in a row match, which one is the odd picture, which lettered sentence is true, where a word sits in the box of eight, the order of the pieces on the cut strip), the position of the right answer is checked so it does not sit in the same spot three times in a row. The wrong sentences on the true-sentence page are each half wrong, so a child has to read the scene.

Type In, Or Print

The name line and every answer box are type-in fields in any PDF reader: click one, type, then save. The same goes for the tracker, the class grid, the team note and the home page. This is a fillable PDF; it is not a Google Slides or PowerPoint file.

Who This Is For

Primary classrooms, self-contained and resource rooms, and any teacher building early force-and-motion ideas into a center, a small group or a morning work folder. The reading is written at about a grade 2-3 level, and the teacher can read each scene aloud.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A balanced and unbalanced forces worksheet set with the record-keeping around it. It is not a timed test, a screener, a clinical tool, or a claim about any student's age or rate of progress. There is no IEP goal language or eligibility wording anywhere in the file.