Friction Teaching Resources

Teach students about friction and how this force affects our world with ready-made teacher resources to save you time on your lesson plans! Created by our expert teacher team for teachers like you, every resource in this collection is aligned with Australian science curriculum standards and is ready for your classroom and your students.

Help students understand the different types of friction, how they prevent objects from sliding or moving and more! This collection is stocked with everything you need to bring this segment of the science curriculum to life, including editable resources you can adapt to easily differentiate instruction for your students.

Is this your first year teaching about friction forces? Or are you looking for fresh ideas? Read on for a primer from the Teach Starter teacher team, including a way to explain the meaning of friction to your students.

What Is Friction? A Kid-Friendly Definition

When you're introducing a new science concept to your students, we know that having a definition handy can make the first lesson easier! Here's how our teacher team describes the meaning of friction to our students:

Friction is a force that causes objects to slow down or stop when they rub against each other. It happens when two surfaces are touching and moving against each other.

For example, when you rub your hands together really fast, you may start to feel heat and resistance between them. That's the force of friction at work!

How Does Friction Work? A Kid-Friendly Explanation

An easy way to explain friction to kids is to have them picture a stickiness between two objects.

When those two things are moving against each other, that stickiness — or friction — tries to slow them down or even stop them from moving completely.

For example, let's say you have a pile of books piled up on your desk. If you try to slide that pile of books across the desk, friction might make it difficult to move the pile.

Why Does Friction Happen?

Friction happens because most surfaces are not completely smooth. Instead, there are tiny bumps and craters on objects — even when we can't see them!

When two objects rub against one another, the bumps and rough spots on the two objects grind against one another and sometimes interlock, making it more difficult for the objects to move past one another.

This is friction at work!

What Is Static Friction?

Static friction is a type of friction that happens when two surfaces are not moving relative to each other. For example, if you try to push a heavy box, and it doesn't move until you push it even harder, you're experiencing static friction at work.

This occurs because static friction will keep an object in one place until enough force is applied to overcome it.

What Is Sliding Friction?

Another common type of friction kids experience in the real world — often before learning about it in science class — is sliding friction.

Sliding friction happens when two objects move against one another.

A great example of sliding fiction is using a playground slide at recess. When a child slides down the slide, they're experiencing sliding friction! The slide provides resistance against a person's legs or clothing, which means the person moving down the slide is slowed down by the force of friction.

Another example of sliding friction is ice skating. Because the surface of ice is usually smooth, it provides less friction, and skates are able to slide across the ice more easily than they would if the surface were more rough.

What Is Rolling Friction?

Just as the name implies, rolling friction is a force that we experience when one object rolls over another.

When we ride a bike, we experiencing rolling friction as the wheels of the bicycle roll over the car park surface.