Using toys to teach physics

Purpose

Using toys to teach scientific concept covered at key stage two is a fun and engaging way for students to learn. The toys described below were all purchased from retailers and are an alternative to expensive scientific equipment if you want to introduce more practicals into their lessons.

Magic floating discs - magnetism

Starting off with a ‘wow’ demonstration that looks like magic, but works because of magnets attracting and repelling. I used 3 magnetic discs with a hole in the middle, with North on one side and South on the other (bought from Toys R Us).

If the discs are placed one on top of the other on a vertical stick so that like poles are stacked next to each other, the discs will bounce up and down as the forces of gravity and magnetic repulsion come to a final compromise of a discs ‘magically’ floating in mid-air. They love watching it, and are fully engaged in working out how it works.

Magic moving car

I introduced a toy car that the discs can slot into side-ways so that looking at the front of the car (bought from Toys R Us). The North poles are seen and looking at the back of the car, the South poles are seen. Using another magnet, the students are challenged to apply their understanding of magnets to make the toy car move without touching it, using either attraction or repulsion.

Toy train

Reinforcing this, I used a toy train with several carriages that link by magnets (bought from Toys R Us). The students are asked to make the train pull its carriages and explain the arrangements of magnetic poles on either side of the carriages.

Car chase and car crash

Each students gets a toy car (bought from Toys R Us) and uses blu tac to stick a bar magnet to the top of it. In pairs the students work out how to make a car crash and a car chase using magnetism.
(All of the toys mentioned above were bought.)

Toy soldiers: air resistance

Using toy soldiers with parachutes attached, keep one soldier with the parachute unopened, and the other with it opened. Drop them both from the same height at the same time and get the students to predict which will get to the ground first.

‘Floaty boaties’: upthrust and gravity

Using plasticine, paperclips, empty ice cream tubs and water, challenge students to make a ‘boat’ (more like a tiny bowl!) that floats on water and that holds the most paperclips.

Toys R Us sells a set of 20 multicoloured plasticines in mini tubs that make it easy to organise. Multicoloured paperclips make it more fun too.

Students add paperclips one by one until the boats sink. The boat that holds the highest number of paperclips is the winner. Then use a magnet to get the paperclips from the bottom of the tub of water and try again. Student then explain using force arrows of different sizes what happened at the beginning, middle and end of their trials in terms of the changing sizes and balance between the gravity vs upthrust forces.

Wiggly wire game: electricity

This helps to explore complete and incomplete circuits. Have a competition use the wiggly wire game (I bought one from Boots the chemist) to challenge students to get the metal wand around the metal wiggly circuit without the buzzer sounding. Then ask them to explain how the game works.

Last updated: 31 May 2007