Patterns of Forces Activity: 8 Hands-On Stations for Teaching Gravity, Friction, and Magnetism (TEKS 4.7)

Chris Kesler · 8 min read

Slide across a tile floor in socks. Easy. Try the same slide in sneakers. You stop in about six inches. Drop a tennis ball and a ping-pong ball from the same height. They land at almost the same time. Hold a magnet near a paperclip. It jumps. Hold the same magnet near a penny. Nothing. 4th graders have lived inside these patterns their whole lives without ever calling them by their science names. That's what TEKS 4.7 is here to change.

That's TEKS 4.7. It asks 4th graders to investigate and identify patterns of forces and their effects on motion, including objects pushing, pulling, gravity, magnetism, and friction. For most kids at this age, this is the first time "force" shows up as a science word with a real definition (a push or a pull), and the first time gravity, friction, and magnetism get grouped together as the three big forces that show up everywhere.

The Investigate Patterns of Forces Station Lab for TEKS 4.7 puts the patterns in their hands. Kids drop three different balls from a meter up and time the falls. They roll a ball down a ramp with and without felt to test friction. They compare data tables showing what happens to gravity when objects get farther apart and what happens to magnetism when a magnet gets farther from a metal object. By the end, they can explain why an Olympic skier moves fast on snow and a couch is harder to slide on carpet than on wood.

⏱ 1–2 class periods 📓 4th Grade Science 🧪 TEKS 4.7 🎯 Built-in differentiation 💻 Print or Digital

8 hands-on stations for teaching patterns of forces

A station lab is a student-led activity where small groups rotate through 8 stations (plus a 9th challenge station for early finishers) at their own pace during one to two class periods. You become a facilitator instead of a lecturer. You walk around, spot-check, and break misconceptions while the kids work through the rotation.

The Investigate Patterns of Forces Station Lab has four input stations (where students take in new information on gravity, friction, and magnetism) and four output stations (where they show what they learned). Here's what's at each one.

📷 Image slot 1 — add screenshot

📷 Image slot 2 — add screenshot

4 input stations: how students learn patterns of forces

🎬 Watch It! —

A short YouTube video introduces forces. Three questions on the answer sheet check whether students caught the big ideas: how a football player can control how far he kicks the ball (by applying more or less force), why it's easier to walk on tile in socks than on carpet (less friction on tile), and why the Sun has more gravity than Earth and the Moon (more mass means more gravity). The video front-loads gravity, friction, and force-strength so kids walk into Explore It! ready to test the patterns themselves.

📖 Read It! —

A one-page passage called "Investigating Patterns of Forces" defines force as a push or a pull, then walks through three big forces in everyday examples kids know. Friction is the sock-vs-sneaker comparison on a tile floor. Magnetism is what makes a paperclip jump to a magnet but leaves a penny alone (only iron, steel, and certain metals). Gravity is what pulls an orange off a table and pulls a thrown ball back to the ground. Vocabulary is bolded throughout (forces, friction, magnetism, attraction, gravity). Three multiple-choice questions follow plus the vocabulary section. The passage uses short sentences and the everyday examples 4th graders see every day.

🔬 Explore It! —

This is the heart of the lab. Two descriptive investigations back to back. Part 1: do all objects fall at the same speed? Kids time a tennis ball, a softball, and a ping-pong ball dropping from 1 meter up, record each drop time in the data table, and decide if mass affects how fast each ball fell. Then they predict what would happen with a bowling ball. Part 2: how do different surfaces affect the speed of a rolling object? They set up a ramp, roll a small ball down with no felt and time it, then drape felt over the ramp and time the same ball again. They predict what would happen on a ramp covered in ice. By the end, two of the three big forces (gravity, friction) have been tested with their own stopwatches.

💻 Research It! —

Eight reference cards. A Mass-and-Gravity bar graph shows gravitational force going up as mass goes from 1 kg to 3 kg. A Distance-Between-Objects-and-Gravity bar graph shows gravitational force dropping as distance goes from 100 to 300 meters. A Magnetism diagram shows that likes repel (N/N or S/S) and opposites attract (N/S). A Distance-and-Magnetism table shows magnetic strength dropping from Strong at 1 cm to Very Low at 6 cm. A Surfaces-and-Friction table shows friction levels across wood, sandpaper, ice, carpet, glass, and gravel. A Friction-and-Speed bar graph shows a rolling ball's speed across ice, carpet, sandpaper, grass, and wood. Five analysis questions tie the cards together (describe the pattern between distance and both gravity and magnetism, predict gravity at 400 meters, predict what happens between two magnets 7 cm apart with N facing S, predict the speed of a ball on gravel, and explain how to test all three predictions).

📷 Featured station deep-dive — add screenshot of the Explore It! task card

4 output stations: how students show what they learned

📋 Organize It! —

A three-column card sort: Gravity, Friction, Magnetism. Six examples to place: a backpack full of books is heavier than an empty one (gravity), a kicked soccer ball slows down in tall grass (friction), a crane can pick up cars just by touching them (magnetism), every ball thrown in the air falls back down (gravity), dragging a wagon without wheels is harder than pulling one with wheels (friction), and a paperclip moves when a magnet comes near it (magnetism). Three-column sorts with two examples each are easier to spot-check at a glance, which is helpful with this standard since gravity examples often get confused with friction examples.

🎨 Illustrate It! —

Students draw two quick sketches. First, what would happen if you placed a magnet near a small steel nail sitting on your desk (the nail moves toward the magnet because of magnetism). Then, what would happen if you pushed that nail just over the edge of the desk (the nail falls to the floor because of gravity). The two drawings are deliberately right next to each other. Same nail, two different forces, two different outcomes. It's the cleanest way to see whether kids can match a force to the situation in front of them.

✍️ Write It! —

Three open-ended questions in complete sentences. First, describe how you would set up an experiment to test the effects of gravity on a pencil and a rubber ball (drop them from the same height, time how long each one takes to land). Second, you want to see how much easier it is to slide a book across a desk when you put a piece of fabric under it (run the book with and without the fabric and compare). Third, you find two different magnets; explain how you could determine which is stronger (test how far away each one can still pick up a paperclip or how many paperclips each can hold). All three questions push kids to design simple investigations themselves, which is a 4th-grade science skill TEKS 4.7 keeps tapping into.

📝 Assess It! —

Three multiple-choice questions plus a fill-in-the-paragraph that uses the five Read It! vocabulary words (forces, friction, gravity, magnetism, attraction). The multiple choice asks what force causes a golf ball to land back on the ground (gravity), why a couch is easier to slide across a wood floor than carpet (carpet has more friction), and what force could move a large piece of metal in a scrap yard (magnetism). The fill-in-the-paragraph weaves the vocabulary into an Olympic skier scenario: forces act on them, very little friction between their skis and the snow makes them fast, gravity pulls them downhill, they display the winning photo using a magnet, and the picture stays in place because of the attraction between magnet and refrigerator. Real-life scenarios are what 4.7 keeps coming back to.

Bonus Challenge It! station for early finishers

🏆 Challenge It! —

Four optional extensions: pick at least 10 vocabulary words from this lesson and build a crossword puzzle (with answer key); describe the concept for a video game that uses different forces, including how players win; design a colorful infographic showing how gravity and friction affect a sport like soccer, basketball, or ice skating; or design an investigation by recording a video of yourself testing the effect of gravity, friction, or magnetism with a testable question, procedure, observations, and conclusions. Requires teacher approval before they start.

How this fits into a complete Patterns of Forces unit

This Station Lab is the Explore day of our full Investigate Patterns of Forces Complete 5E Lesson for TEKS 4.7. The complete two-week unit follows the 5E method of instruction and includes an Engage hook, the Investigate Patterns of Forces Station Lab for Explore, PowerPoint slides and interactive notebook pages for Explain, student choice projects to Elaborate, and an Evaluate assessment.

Most 4th-grade teachers I work with grab the full 5E because the Station Lab lands hardest when it's surrounded by the days around it. But if you just need a strong hands-on day on gravity, friction, and magnetism, the Station Lab on its own does the job.

Two options

Investigate Patterns of Forces 5E Lesson cover

Full 5E Lesson $13.20 Get the 5E Lesson

Investigate Patterns of Forces Station Lab cover

Just the Station Lab $7.20 Get the Station Lab

Materials needed to teach patterns of forces

Materials beyond what's in the download:

One tennis ball, one softball, and one ping-pong ball per group for the Explore It! Part 1 falling investigation. If you don't have three different balls per group, share one set across the rotation and have groups time them in turn. The point is three different masses dropped from the same height.
One stopwatch or timer per group. Phones, classroom timers, or stopwatch apps all work. The drops happen in about 0.4 seconds, so kids' reaction time will vary, but the average will still show that the three balls land at almost the same time.
One small ramp per group for the Explore It! Part 2 rolling investigation. A foot-long piece of cardboard or a clipboard propped on a stack of books at about 30 degrees works. The angle just needs to be steep enough for the ball to roll without help.
One small ball per group for the ramp (a marble, golf ball, or rubber ball works).
One piece of felt per group (about 12 inches by 6 inches) to drape over the ramp for the friction comparison. Any rough fabric works in a pinch.
A meter stick per group for measuring the 1-meter drop height in Part 1.
Colored pencils or markers for the Illustrate It! station.
Pencils and the printed answer sheets (included)
A device with internet for the Watch It! station

If you're like most 4th-grade teachers, you don't have a sports closet sitting next to your science cabinet. The PE teacher in your building almost certainly has tennis balls, ping-pong balls, and a softball or two, and is usually happy to lend them for a week. The felt is the most often-missing item; a $3 piece of craft felt from any craft store does the job and you'll use it every year.

Standard covered: Texas TEKS 4.7 —

Investigate and identify patterns of forces and their effects on motion, including objects pushing, pulling, gravity, magnetism, and friction.

See the full standard breakdown →

Grade level: 4th grade physical science

Time: One to two class periods (45–110 minutes total). Plan for two periods the first time you run this lab because the Explore It! station has two separate investigations (falling balls and ramp with felt).

Common student misconceptions this lab fixes

"Heavier things fall faster than lighter things. A bowling ball would beat a tennis ball to the ground if you dropped them at the same time."
This is the most common 4th-grade misconception on 4.7, and the entire Part 1 of Explore It! is built to break it. Kids drop a tennis ball, a softball, and a ping-pong ball from the same height and time each one. The three balls have very different masses, but the times come out close. The Explore It! Question 1 ("Did the mass of the objects affect how fast each ball fell?") forces them to look at their own data table. Question 2 ("Imagine dropping a bowling ball from the same height. Faster, slower, or the same?") catches the misconception in their prediction; the data table they just wrote tells them the answer is "the same." The Research It! Mass-and-Gravity card adds a wrinkle: mass DOES affect the strength of gravity on an object, just not how fast it falls in everyday drops. By the end of the lab, kids can hold both ideas at once: more mass means more gravitational pull, but a bowling ball and a tennis ball still land at almost the same time when dropped from the same height.
"Friction is bad. It just slows things down and gets in the way."
Kids' first exposure to friction in school usually frames it as a force that stops motion. So they assume friction is the enemy. The Read It! passage sets up the comparison both ways: socks slide easily on tile (low friction is helpful for sliding) but sneakers stop you fast (high friction is what lets you walk without falling). The Research It! Surfaces-and-Friction table and Friction-and-Speed bar graph show the whole pattern across wood, sandpaper, ice, carpet, glass, and gravel. The Explore It! ramp investigation has them roll the same ball with and without felt; the felt slows the ball, which they predicted, but the conversation in the answer also gets at WHY we'd want that (it's the same reason brakes work on a bike or a car). The Assess It! Olympic skier paragraph fills in the upside: less friction is what makes a skier go fast downhill. Friction isn't good or bad; it's a pattern that helps or hurts depending on what you're trying to do.
"Magnets stick to all metal. If it's shiny and metallic, the magnet will grab it."
4th graders hear "metal" and assume "magnetic." They've never tested a penny or a strip of aluminum foil. The Read It! passage names it directly: magnetism only affects materials made of iron, steel, and other specific metals. The passage even lists what to test (paperclips, coins, and a key) so the kids can predict which ones are magnetic before they touch them. The Research It! Distance-and-Magnetism table shows how magnetic strength drops with distance, which is the second magnetism pattern they need to know. The Illustrate It! station puts a magnet near a steel nail (it moves) and locks the connection between the right metal and the right force. The Assess It! "large piece of metal in a scrap yard" question and the fill-in-the-paragraph refrigerator-magnet scenario both lean on the right kind of metal for the magnetism to work. By the end, kids know magnetism is about WHAT the metal is made of, not whether it's metal at all.

What you get with this Patterns of Forces activity

📷 Inside-the-product — add screenshot of Read It passage or sample answer sheet

When you buy the Station Lab, you get a single download with everything you need:

Print version at two reading levels (Dependent for on-grade, Modified for additional support) plus a Spanish Read It! passage
Digital version as PowerPoint files (works in Google Slides too) at both levels — for 1:1 classrooms or Google Classroom
Teacher Directions and Answer Key for both versions, all keys included
Station task cards ready to print, laminate, and drop in baskets at each station
Reference cards for the Research It! station (8 cards covering the Mass-and-Gravity bar graph, Distance-and-Gravity bar graph, Magnetism diagram, Distance-and-Magnetism table, Surfaces-and-Friction table, Friction-and-Speed bar graph, and the five analysis questions)
Sort cards for the Organize It! station (6 example scenarios across Gravity, Friction, and Magnetism)
Student answer sheets for each level (with the Ball and Ramp data tables already set up)

Tips for teaching patterns of forces in your 4th grade classroom

Two things make this lab go smoother the first time:

1. Practice the falling-ball drops before the rotation runs.

The Explore It! Part 1 drops happen in about 0.4 seconds. 4th graders pressing a stopwatch for the first time will get times all over the map. Before kids touch the timers, run the drops yourself in front of the class with one volunteer running the stopwatch. Show them how to start the timer on "drop" and stop it when the ball hits the floor. Talk about averaging multiple drops if their first time looks weird. The point isn't precision; it's that the three balls' times are close to each other. If their data shows a 2-second drop for one ball and a 0.3-second drop for another, the conservation idea won't land. Quick practice round fixes this.

2. Set up the ramp at the same angle for every group.

The Part 2 felt comparison only works if the ball rolls the same way every time. If one kid sets the ramp at 45 degrees and another sets it at 20, the no-felt and with-felt comparison gets noisy. Pre-stack the books or pre-prop the ramp at the same angle (about 30 degrees works) before class. Mark the start line on the ramp with a piece of tape so the ball begins in the same spot every time. The point of the investigation is changing ONE variable (the felt). Pre-staging the rest of the setup is what makes the felt result clean.

Get this Patterns of Forces activity

Investigate Patterns of Forces Station Lab for 4th grade physical science — TEKS 4.7

Buy the Station Lab — $7.20

Or if you want the full two-week experience with the Engage hook, Explain day, Elaborate extension, and Evaluate assessment all included:

Buy the full 5E Complete Lesson — $13.20

(Station Lab is included)

Frequently asked questions

What does TEKS 4.7 cover?

Texas TEKS 4.7 asks 4th grade students to investigate and identify patterns of forces and their effects on motion, including objects pushing, pulling, gravity, magnetism, and friction. By the end of this lab, kids should be able to define a force as a push or pull, identify gravity (a pull toward Earth's surface), friction (a force that slows motion when surfaces touch), and magnetism (a force between certain metals and a magnet), and predict what happens to each force when conditions change (like distance increasing).

Is this kids' first time meeting "force" as a science word?

For most 4th graders, yes. They've used the word casually ("don't force the door open"), but "force" as a science term that means "a push or a pull" is brand new. The Read It! passage opens with the definition, and the Explore It! ramp and ball-drop investigations let them feel two of the three forces directly. The Organize It! three-column sort then locks gravity, friction, and magnetism as three separate categories with their own everyday examples. By the end, kids have working definitions they'll use again in middle school physics.

How long does this Patterns of Forces activity take?

One to two class periods (45 to 110 minutes total). The Explore It! station has two separate investigations (Part 1: dropping three balls and timing them; Part 2: rolling a ball down a ramp with and without felt), which is the longest piece. Plan for two periods the first time you run this lab. Once your class has the rotation routine down, most groups can finish all 8 stations in one period.

Do I need a lot of supplies for this lab?

Not really. Three balls per group (tennis, softball, ping-pong), one stopwatch, a ramp made from cardboard or a clipboard propped on books, a piece of felt, and a meter stick. The PE teacher in your building almost certainly has the balls. The felt is the only item you might need to grab from a craft store ($3 or so). Total cost for a class of 30 starting from nothing: under $20 if you can borrow the balls and stopwatches.

Can I use this in a 1:1 digital classroom?

Yes. The full digital version (PowerPoint or Google Slides) works in 1:1 classrooms and Google Classroom. Students drag digital cards at the Organize It! gravity/friction/magnetism sort and type their answers on the answer sheet. The Explore It! ball-drops and ramp investigations are harder to digitize, but PhET has a free "Forces and Motion" simulation that lets kids change surfaces and ball mass on screen. Pair the simulation with the data tables already in the answer sheet and you get most of the way to the hands-on experience.