A sled runs fast on the snow and stops dead where the road is bare. Write the two halves of the hill.Angle: the bare road has waited all winter to do that.
A bicycle brake squeezes a spinning wheel. Write the stop from the brake pad's side.Angle: it does its whole job in two seconds.
List every push and every pull you make between waking up and leaving the house. Then write the morning using only those.Fact: forces act in a particular direction, and their size depends on how strong the push or pull is.
A dog pulls on its leash and a person pulls back. Write the walk as the leash.Angle: who is walking whom?
A door says PUSH and somebody pulls. Write the door's patient thoughts.Angle: it has seen this nine times today.
A force has a size and a direction. Write a treasure map made only of pushes: how hard, and which way.Fact: the unit of force is the newton.
A kite pulls on its string and the wind pushes on the kite. Write the afternoon the wind changed.Fact: NASA lists the motion of a kite when the wind changes among its examples of inertia.
A rocket pushes gas down and the gas pushes the rocket up. Write the liftoff as the launch pad left behind.Fact: hot gases flow out the back of an engine and a thrusting force is produced in the opposite direction.
A shopping cart is easy to start when empty and stubborn when full. Write the cart explaining itself.Fact: the more mass a thing has, the less the same push speeds it up.
A soccer ball sits on the grass and will sit there forever unless something happens. Write the wait, and the kick.Fact: with no unbalanced force on it, an object at rest remains at rest.
An ant pushes a crumb bigger than itself. Write the push from the crumb's point of view.Angle: the crumb did not expect to go anywhere today.
List every push and every pull you make between waking up and leaving the house. Then write the morning using only those.Fact: forces act in a particular direction, and their size depends on how strong the push or pull is.
Push on a wall and the wall pushes back just as hard. Write the wall's side.Fact: when one object pushes on a second, the second pushes back with an equal and opposite force.
Some pulls need no rope and no hand. Write an apple's last second on the branch.Fact: gravity is an invisible force that pulls objects toward each other.
Two friends on roller skates push off each other's hands. Write where each one ends up, and who is surprised.Angle: the lighter skater has more to say about it.
Two teams pull on one rope and nothing moves. Write the rope's report on a perfect tie.Fact: when the forces on a thing cancel each other out, there is no net force and its motion does not change.
Write a snow day as pushes and pulls only: the shovel, the sled rope, the door against the drift.Angle: label each one P or L in the margin when you finish.
Write a wagon ride in three pushes: one too soft, one too hard, one just right.Fact: how fast an object speeds up depends on its mass and on the amount of force applied.
A ride down a slide 15
A fairground slide hands every rider a sack to sit on. Write the sack's working day.Fact: on some slides riders are given a sack to sit on, to reduce friction for higher speeds.
A metal slide in July has something to say to bare legs. Write its warning.Fact: slides made of metal may become very hot in warm, sunny weather.
A raindrop starts at the top of a slide after the storm. Write its ride down, picking up others on the way.Angle: it is a puddle by the bottom. Who was it at the top?
A small kid and a big kid go down the same slide. Write the race and the argument about who should win.Angle: settle it by trying, not by guessing.
A spiral slide turns you the whole way down. Write what your body wanted to do instead.Fact: left alone, a moving object goes on in a straight line. A turn takes an unbalanced force.
A water slide wears a thin sheet of water all the way down. Write the ride as the water.Fact: when a fluid separates two solid surfaces, the friction between them is called lubricated friction.
At the bottom the ground stops you. Write the landing as the ground, which has caught every rider so far.Fact: a surface pushes up on what presses down on it, with an equal force called the normal force.
At the top of the slide you are not moving, and gravity is already pulling. Write the second before you let go.Fact: gravity is the force by which a planet draws objects toward its center.
Climbing the ladder is the price of the ride. Write a kid working out, rung by rung, what they are buying.Angle: is it a fair price?
Invent the longest slide in the world and write how the ride changes from the top to the bottom.Angle: say where it starts and what you pass.
The same slide is fast in snow pants and slow in corduroy. Write the two rides.Fact: friction is the force that resists surfaces sliding against each other.
Someone builds a slide twice as steep as the old one. Write the first rider's report.Angle: three words at the top, and three different ones at the bottom.
Write one trip down a slide as a countdown from five, a sentence for each number.Fact: a slide is an inclined plane, which makes moving things down easier or, here, more fun.
Write the slide's view of a whole recess: every rider, every style, and the one who climbs up the wrong way.Angle: the slide has a favorite and will not say who.
You shoot off the end of the slide and keep going. Write the half second between the slide and the ground.Fact: the tendency of a thing to resist a change in its motion is called inertia.
Friction 15
A ball rolled across a field always stops. Write the argument between someone who says balls get tired and someone who blames the grass.Fact: on Earth, inertia is often masked by friction and air resistance, which slow moving objects.
A bicycle brake squeezes a spinning wheel. Write the stop from the brake pad's side.Angle: it does its whole job in two seconds.
A curling stone glides down the ice and slows. Write the stone's last ten feet.Fact: a curling stone sliding along the ice feels a friction force that slows it down.
A drop of oil is sent in to quiet a squeaking hinge. Write the mission.Fact: in lubricated friction, a fluid separates two solid surfaces.
A heavy box will not start sliding, and then suddenly it does. Write the moment it lets go of the floor.Fact: static friction acts between surfaces that are not moving, kinetic friction between moving ones.
A nail has held up the same picture for thirty years. Write what it holds on with.Fact: once a nail is driven in, its shaft may hold fast because of friction.
A sled runs fast on the snow and stops dead where the road is bare. Write the two halves of the hill.Angle: the bare road has waited all winter to do that.
The first rules of sliding friction were written in a notebook and never published. Write the notebook's long wait.Fact: the classic laws of sliding friction were found in 1493 and stayed unknown in unpublished notebooks.
Friction is switched off at noon. Start at 11:59 in a school hallway and write the next two minutes.Angle: nobody is hurt, and nobody can stop either.
Rub your hands together for ten seconds and write what you made.Fact: when two surfaces rub, friction turns some of the energy of their motion into heat.
Socks on a wooden floor, sneakers on a gym floor. Write the same run in both.Angle: the socks get farther and have less say in where.
Write friction a fair review: one star for the scraped knee, five for everything it holds still.Angle: finish with the number of stars you would really give.
Write the complaint of a pencil eraser that is used up by doing its job well.Fact: one consequence of friction is wear.
Write the tread of a shoe on a wet path, gripping where it can.Angle: tell it step by step, and give the puddle a line.
You take three steps onto a floor with no friction at all. Write them.Angle: decide what you reach for.
A day without gravity 15
A planet with less mass would pull on you less. Write your first long jump on a smaller world.Fact: on a planet with less mass than Earth, you would weigh less than you do here.
An astronaut moves a crate nobody could lift on the ground, with one fingertip. Write the first time she tries.Fact: in microgravity, astronauts can move equipment weighing hundreds of pounds with their fingertips.
Astronauts float, and gravity is still there. Write an astronaut explaining this to a child on a video call.Fact: at the height of the space station, Earth's gravity is about 90 percent of what it is on the surface.
Gravity comes back at sunset. Write the minute before, when everyone is told to get close to the floor.Angle: nobody is hurt. What lands last?
Gravity is not quite the same everywhere on Earth. Write a traveler who claims to feel the difference.Fact: gravity is slightly stronger over places with more mass underground.
Gravity is switched off at breakfast. Write the first thing you notice, and it is not yourself.Angle: the cereal, the cat, the water in the sink.
The Moon is held by gravity. Write the night it is let go, as someone watching from a porch.Fact: gravity is what keeps the Moon in orbit around Earth.
On a day without gravity the ocean forgets the tide. Write a beach at what should have been high water.Fact: the pull of the Moon's gravity on the seas causes the ocean tides.
On a day without gravity, which way is down? Write a family deciding where to put the table.Angle: every wall gets a vote.
The space station is falling the whole time and never lands. Write a day aboard as one long fall.Fact: a spacecraft in orbit keeps falling toward the ground but never hits it. It falls around the planet.
Without gravity the air would not stay. Write the sky's goodbye, and gravity coming back just in time.Fact: gravity holds down our atmosphere and the air we need to breathe.
Write a letter of apology from gravity for every dropped ice cream, with a list of what it has done for you lately.Fact: the Sun's gravity keeps Earth in orbit, at a comfortable distance for light and warmth.
Write a soccer match played on a day without gravity. Who scores, and where does the ball end up?Angle: the referee has to decide what offside means now.
You pull on the Earth exactly as hard as it pulls on you. Write the Earth noticing you for the first time.Fact: you exert the same gravitational force on Earth that it does on you.
You weigh nothing for a day. Write the bathroom scale's confusion.Fact: Earth's gravity pulling on all the mass in your body is what gives you weight.
How it works
A force and motion writing prompt needs a thing that moves and a thing that moves it. These forces and motion writing prompts use a shopping cart, a playground slide, a squeaking hinge and a day without gravity. Facts come from NASA and Wikipedia.
Read the full guide
Push, pull and a ride down a slide
The push and pull prompts are everyday: a shopping cart explains why it is stubborn when full, and a rope reports on a perfect tie. Then fifteen prompts go down a slide, from the second before letting go to the ground that catches every rider.
Friction, and a day without gravity
Friction gets a fair review, with stars. In the last group gravity is switched off at breakfast: the ocean forgets the tide, the bathroom scale is confused, and a family votes on which wall is down.
Name the force before you write: a push, a pull, friction or gravity.
Slow it down. One second on a slide can fill a page.
Questions and answers
What is a good force and motion writing prompt?
One you can feel. A soccer ball sits on the grass and will sit there forever unless something happens: write the wait, and the kick. Or take three steps onto a floor with no friction at all.
Are there writing prompts about gravity?
Fifteen, in the group A day without gravity. They rest on NASA's account of what gravity does: it gives you weight, holds down the air, keeps the Moon in orbit and causes the tides.
Why do astronauts float if there is gravity in space?
They are falling. NASA says Earth's gravity at the height of the space station is about 90 percent of what it is on the surface. The station and its crew fall around the planet together, so the crew appears to float.