Science topics · Grades 1–6
Physical Science Lessons & Worksheets
Explore forces, motion, matter, energy, light, and sound through classroom-ready investigations. Choose your grade to find lesson plans and printable resources.
Choose your grade
Jump straight to the lessons that fit your class.
Classroom idea: How can we explain a change in motion or matter?
Use a simple object, a light source, or a moving toy as the starting point. Let students predict what will happen and explain what they observe.
Ask students to change one thing, compare the outcome, and explain the pattern using evidence.
Grade 1 · Physical Science
Grade 1 lessons
Notice how light, sound, and materials behave in familiar situations.
Light & Sound
Light Helps Us See
Can you see a toy in the dark? Compare the same object with the light off and on. Then find things that make their own light.
Light & Sound
Shadows & Light Direction
Move a flashlight around the same object. Observe how a shadow changes when the light comes from a new direction or distance.
Light & Sound
What Happens When Light Hits Materials?
Keep one light setup fixed, test four materials, and use the observed light patches as evidence.
Light & Sound
Communicating with Light & Sound
Use flashes, taps, and simple patterns to design a signal that sends information across a distance.
Light & Sound
Sound & Vibrations: How Sounds Are Made
Tap, pluck, watch, and listen. Notice that vibrating materials move back and forth and can make sound. Then observe that sound can make other materials vibrate.
Grade 2 · Physical Science
Grade 2 lessons
Explore properties of materials and how they can change.
Matter and Materials
Material Properties & Purposes
Test how familiar material samples handle water and bending. Then use the results to choose a material that fits a purpose.
Properties of Matter
Solids & Liquids: How Matter Behaves
Move, pour, and compare familiar matter. Watch whether a sample keeps its shape or changes shape to fit a container.
Changes in Matter
Heating & Cooling: Changes We Can Reverse
Observe changes caused by heating and cooling, then use evidence to decide whether each change can be reversed.
Materials & Objects
Build It, Take It Apart, Build Something New
Explore how the same set of pieces can be taken apart and rearranged to make a different object.
Matter and Its Properties
Material Change Patterns: What Stays the Same?
Compare paper, foil, and sponge before and after folding, tearing, bending, or wetting to describe observable properties and distinguish a changed object from a completely new material.
Heat & Materials
Insulators & Conductors: Which Materials Transfer Heat?
Compare how quickly thermal energy moves through different materials, then use evidence to choose a material for a simple design problem.
Matter & Materials
Air Is Matter: It Takes Up Space & Can Push
Use balloons, cups, bags, and syringes to gather evidence that invisible air takes up space and can push on objects.
Grade 3 · Physical Science
Grade 3 lessons
Investigate forces and patterns of motion.
Forces & Motion
Balanced & Unbalanced Forces
Investigate how pushes and pulls in different directions affect an object's motion. Change one force condition at a time and use what the object does as evidence.
Forces and Interactions
Magnetic Forces
Use observations and simple data to explain magnetic pushes and pulls across a gap. Compare pole orientation, distance, and specific tested objects.
Forces & Motion
Patterns of Motion & Prediction
Observe repeated motion, identify a pattern, test a prediction, and revise when conditions change.
Forces and Interactions
Static Electricity: Forces Without Touching
Investigate how charged objects can attract or repel across a gap and use distance evidence to describe cause-and-effect patterns in static electric interactions.
Forces and Design
Bridge Engineering: Designing for a Load
Build, test, and improve small bridge prototypes while controlling span, materials, and load placement so failure points become useful engineering evidence.
Forces & Motion
Friction Experiment: Which Surface Slows Motion?
Run a fair sliding test on different surfaces, measure how far an object travels, and use the results to explain how friction can change motion.
Science Practices
Scientific Method: Ask, Test, Measure & Explain
Turn a question into a fair test, change one variable, collect repeated data, and use evidence to explain what the results support.
Grade 4 · Physical Science
Grade 4 lessons
Connect energy and waves to useful designs.
Waves & Information
Codes & Information Transfer: Patterns That Send Messages
Design, test, and compare pattern-based codes that use light, sound, cards, or two-symbol sequences to transfer information accurately across a distance.
Energy
Energy Transfer
Use observations as evidence that energy can move from place to place through sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
Energy
Electricity & Simple Circuits
Build and test simple circuits, use a bulb as evidence of a complete path, and investigate which tested materials can bridge a gap.
Electricity & Magnetism
Build an Electromagnet: Current, Coils & Magnetic Strength
Build a simple electromagnet and use fair tests to investigate how electric current and coil turns affect magnetic strength.
Energy
Energy Conversions: Design a Device That Changes Energy
Trace energy through simple devices, distinguish transfer from conversion, and design or refine a device that changes energy from one form to another.
Energy
Collisions & Energy
Ask questions, make predictions, and use collision evidence to reason about changes in motion and energy.
Waves & Information
Waves & Sound
Build and revise qualitative wave models to compare amplitude and wavelength, use physical evidence to reason about wave-caused motion, and explain one limit of a model for sound.
Waves & Information
Light Reflection & Vision
Build a source → object → eye model to explain vision, then use a mirror target investigation to show that changing mirror orientation changes the direction of reflected light.
Grade 5 · Physical Science
Grade 5 lessons
Examine matter, movement, and observable changes.
Engineering Simple Machines
Simple Machines: How Levers and Pulleys Change the Effort
Compare lever and pulley designs with fair tests. Explain how a lower effort can require a greater movement distance, and improve a lifting design using measurements.
Matter
Particles Too Small to See
Use models and observable evidence to explain that matter can be made of particles too small to see directly.
Matter & Properties
Acids & Bases: Properties, Indicators & pH
Use safe indicator evidence to compare acidic, neutral, and basic solutions and interpret the pH scale without relying on taste or touch.
Matter
Conservation of Matter
Measure the same complete setup before and after matter changes form or mixes, then use the data to explain what stayed the same and why a scale reading can change when matter leaves what is being measured.
Matter
Physical & Chemical Changes
Compare a familiar physical change with evidence from a safe mixing investigation. Record before-and-after properties, use more than one observation, and make a careful claim about whether new substances formed.
Matter
Mixtures & Solutions: Dissolve, Separate & Recover Matter
Compare mixtures and solutions, use material properties to choose separation methods, and use recovery evidence to decide whether mixing formed a new substance.
Forces & Gravity
Gravity Pulls Toward Earth
Use observations, diagrams, and models to support an argument that Earth's gravitational force pulls nearby objects toward Earth's center.
Motion & Measurement
Speed Experiment: Measure Distance, Time & Motion
Measure how long a cart takes to travel a fixed distance, calculate average speed, and use repeated trials to test how one change in a ramp setup affects motion.
Grade 6 · Physical Science
Grade 6 lessons
Model forces, energy, waves, and chemical processes.
Structure of Matter
Density: Mass, Volume & Floating
Measure mass and volume, calculate density, compare objects with water, and use force evidence to explain why objects sink, float, or approach neutral buoyancy.
Structure of Matter
Atoms, Elements & Molecules
Build and interpret particle models for simple molecules, distinguish elements and compounds using atom identity, compare discrete molecules with an extended structure, and identify what the models do not show literally.
Chemical Reactions
Chemical Reactions: Evidence & Conservation
Analyze before-and-after property data to decide whether a chemical reaction occurred, then use particle models to explain atom conservation.
Forces & Motion
Forces & Newton's Third Law
Model equal-and-opposite interaction forces and apply Newton's Third Law to improve a one-dimensional collision solution.
Forces & Motion
Force, Mass & Change in Motion
Plan fair one-dimensional investigations and use evidence to explain how net force and mass affect changes in motion.
Energy Transfer
Thermal Energy Transfer: Temperature, Mass & Materials
Plan fair thermal-energy investigations, analyze temperature-change data, and use particle models to explain patterns involving mass and material type.
Waves
Waves: Amplitude, Frequency, Reflection & Absorption
Measure repeating waves, analyze amplitude-energy data, and model reflection, absorption, and transmission at material boundaries.
Energy
Kinetic & Potential Energy: Mass, Speed & Position
Use graphs to analyze how object-scale kinetic energy relates to mass and speed, then model how relative position changes gravitational potential energy in an Earth-object system.