Thursday, March 19, 2015

Simple Machines: Wedges

I don't know if wedges really deserves its own blog post…but here it is anyway. We experimented with pushing different shapes through a pan full of lentils to see which was easiest. It was pretty clear that the wedge did the best job of cutting through and moving away the material, and we could see why wedge-shaped plows are so effective in turning up soil.
I also let the kids experiment with cutting apples using different types of knives. They liked that. They could really feel how the thinner, sharper wedges sliced more easily through the fruit. We also tried biting through the apples with our front teeth (wedge-shaped) vs. our back teeth to see how the wedge shape helps slice rather than grind food.

Here are a couple more cute wedge activity ideas.

This post has some great resources too.

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