Unbalanced forces and changes in motion are the focus of this Grade 3 science reading organizer. Students explore how pushes and pulls can start a stationary object moving, slow it down, stop it, or change its direction. Everyday examples involving soccer balls, toy cars, playground games, and a rolling ball on a ramp make these physical science ideas easier to discuss and explain.

Explore How Forces Change Motion

The informational passages connect force and motion concepts to familiar situations:

• Starting motion: Explore how a kick can set a soccer ball moving and how a gentle push can start a stationary toy car.
• Changing speed: Compare how a stronger push can make a toy car move faster and how a push against a moving ball or car can slow it down.
• Changing direction: Examine how a side push or a bump from another ball can send a moving object along a different path.
• Balanced and unbalanced pulls: Use a tug-of-war example to consider why equal opposing pulls may keep a rope in place, while unequal pulls can move it.
• Gravity and stopping motion: Follow a ball rolling down a ramp, meeting a soft block, or turning after a side push.

Main Idea and Supporting Details Practice

Each passage is paired with a graphic organizer. Students identify the sentence that expresses the main idea, find the supporting details in the passage, and record the information in the organizer. This reading activity gives students practice distinguishing a central idea from examples and explanations while using science information about motion.

The passages also introduce useful science language, including force, push, pull, motion, speed, direction, and gravity. Students encounter observational evidence such as noticing whether an object starts moving, travels faster, slows down, stops, or follows a new path.

Classroom Use

Use this Grade 3 science reading resource during a forces and motion unit, as informational text practice, or alongside simple classroom demonstrations with safe objects such as toy cars and balls. Students can read a passage before discussing what happened in an investigation, or use the organizer to collect the main idea and evidence after observing a push or pull.

By combining science reading with main idea and supporting details practice, this resource connects literacy skills to concrete examples of how unbalanced forces affect everyday objects. It is a focused way to reinforce the relationship between pushes, pulls, and changes in motion.