Exploring Forces with Balloons

Mrs. Katie asked the class the question "how can things move?" the children came up with the following responses:

Throwing         Walking/Feet

Blowing with our mouth, fan, and the wind

Dropping        Kicking         Pulling

Swiping       Slingshot     Pushing

Wheels     Rolling

Catapult

When you let go of a balloon before tying it

After the last was said, we tested it.  I took a balloon and we tried  all the different ways we could make the balloon move.  The only one that we couldn't do was rolling.  Juwana said "you have to blow it up first".  So we blew it up and I tried to roll it but it blew away.  What had we forgot to do? Tie it.  So we tied the balloon and found that we were able to make the balloon move through all these different types of forces.  The children really enjoyed this inquiry, so we took it outside. We blew up dozens of balloons and they tried to make the balloon move using different types of forces.  It was so much fun!