Contact or at a Distance? Sorting Forces for Kids

What You'll Learn

• Contact forces need touching — kicking a ball, pushing a door, friction on
• Distance forces work without touching — magnets attract/repel across a gap,
• The test: does anything have to TOUCH for it to work? Magnet = no touching =
• Earth's gravity pulls from 93 million miles away at the Sun's orbit — the

Words to Know

Force

A push or a pull on something.

Kicking the ball is a force.

Contact force

A force that needs touching.

Pushing the door is a contact force.

Distance force

A force that works without touching.

The magnet's pull is a distance force.

Gravity

The force that pulls everything toward Earth.

Gravity pulled the dropped ball down.

Magnetism

The force magnets use to attract or repel across a gap.

The magnetism pulled the paperclip up.

Static electricity

A distance force that makes light things stick or lift after rubbing.

Static made the hair stand up toward the balloon.

Check What You Learned

Fun Facts

• A force is a push or a pull on an object

  Source: TEKS 3.7A — demonstrate and describe forces acting on objects

• Contact forces require touching — kicking a ball, pushing a door, friction rubbing on a slide

  Source: standard elementary force classification

• Distance forces act without touching — magnets attract/repel across a gap, gravity pulls objects toward Earth, static electricity attracts hair or paper

  Source: NGSS 3-PS2-3 — electric and magnetic interactions between objects not in contact

• Gravity pulls objects down toward Earth — a falling ball is pulled with nothing touching it

  Source: TEKS 3.7A; NGSS gravity as a distance force

• The Sun's gravity holds Earth in orbit from about 93 million miles away — the ultimate distance force

  Source: NASA — Earth-Sun distance ~93 million miles

• Static electricity attracts lightweight objects — a rubbed balloon lifts hair or small paper bits without touching them first

  Source: NGSS 3-PS2-3 static-electric interactions