ScienceGrade 1ages 6–7
🚗 Push and pull
A child staring intently at a toy car, willing it to move, is showing something sweet and also a real misconception — that concentration or wanting is a kind of force, when only an actual touch (a push or a pull) can start or stop something.
Try this lesson freeNo card needed. The first lesson is free.
Download on the App StoreWhat your child learns
- A push sends forward. A pull tugs.
- You can start a toy car with a push.
- You can stop it with a pull or a stopping hand.
- Thinking about it does not move it. You need a real push.
The mistake most kids make here
If you think hard the toy car moves by itself.
Try one question
What starts a toy car moving?
Starts
- only a strong thought
- a push or a pull
- the colour red
Answer
a push or a pull — Yes. Something has to touch it.
How Maya teaches it
Your child tells Maya what they did in class. She teaches this topic at her desk, asks questions with tappable answers, and when the answer is wrong she explains why that answer was tempting instead of saying “try again”. She remembers what did not land and comes back to it.
Your child has it when they can: Say what starts or stops a toy car.
How to help at home
This idea usually comes from cartoons and stories where characters move things with their minds, and from the very real experience that focusing hard often helps with other tasks, like balancing or aiming — so it's a natural (if incorrect) generalization.
Tonight, put a toy car or ball on the floor and take turns: first "just look and think hard" at it for ten seconds (nothing happens), then give it an actual push. Naming the difference out loud — "thinking didn't move it, but my hand touching it did" — is the whole lesson.
When your child says something moved because she "wanted it to," ask: "did something touch it — your hand, the wind, another toy?" If the answer is no, ask her to find what actually did touch it, because something always has to.
A good sign she has it: she can watch a ball roll to a stop and, instead of saying it "got tired," point out that a pull from friction against the floor is what actually slowed it down.
Questions parents ask
- Why does my child think she can move things just by thinking about them?
- It's a common idea at this age, reinforced by stories and cartoons, and by real experiences where focus does help with physical tasks like catching a ball. Distinguishing mental effort from physical force is a skill, not something obvious yet.
- What's the simplest way to explain force to a first grader?
- A force is a push or a pull, and it has to come from something touching the object — a hand, the wind, another object bumping into it. If nothing touched it, nothing moved it, no matter how hard someone concentrated.
- Is it a problem if my child still thinks this way at six?
- Not at all — this is exactly the age where the idea of a push or pull as the cause of movement gets built, usually through play and simple experiments rather than correction alone.
- How does Maya teach this differently from just saying 'that's not how it works'?
- Maya asks what actually touched the toy, prompting the child to look for the real push or pull rather than being told her idea is wrong outright.
No card needed. The first lesson is free.
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Sources: Next Generation Science Standards