I teach many of my science lessons from Picture Perfect Inquiry Lessons for Teaching Science and More Picture Perfect…
One of the lessons teaches force and motion using the book, Sheep in a Jeep. During the inquiry part of the lesson, students measure how far a sheep in a jeep will travel after going down a ramp. They increase the height of the ramp, add sandpaper to simulate friction, and add a roadblock to show what happens when sheep don’t use “sheep-belts.”
Last year, I borrowed toy cars, sheep, ramps, etc. from my teammates. This summer, I collected materials for my classroom. Finding jeeps was impossible, so I had to make my own from plastic sand trucks that I found for $1 each at Target.
To make jeeps from plastic sand trucks, I used floral wire cutters (that’s all I had) to remove the top of the trucks/SUVs. Then, I sanded the rough edges. (I later also used the sandpaper to sand every single edge of the boards that I acquired. They were quite the paradise for splinters.) For those of you wondering, I got the sheep from a lovely independent toy shop here in town.
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