Introducing KNOVA — A free reading app with curriculum-aligned passages on History & Science for Grades 3-8Learn More →Introducing KNOVA — A free reading app with curriculum-aligned passages on History & Science for Grades 3-8Learn More →
Everything you need to teach energy, collisions, energy transfer, and electric circuits. Standards-aligned reading passages, worksheets, anchor charts, and hands-on activities — all inside your Workybooks library.
Every resource on this page is aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for 4th grade physical science.
Use evidence to construct an explanation relating the speed of an object to the energy of that object.
Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
Ask questions and predict outcomes about the changes in energy that occur when objects collide.
Apply scientific ideas to design, test, and refine a device that converts energy from one form to another.
Click any lesson to explore all reading passages, worksheets, and activities inside. All resources included with your Workybooks subscription.
What is energy? How does speed relate to energy? Explore potential, kinetic, and how height affects speed through reading passages and hands-on activities.
What happens when objects collide? Students predict outcomes, observe energy transfer through sound and heat, and model collisions in hands-on labs.
How does energy move from place to place? Explore conduction, radiation, sound, light, and heat transfer through real-world examples and investigations.
How do circuits work? Students learn about electric current, circuit parts, open vs. closed circuits, conductors, insulators, and real-world circuit applications.
Your Workybooks subscription includes this entire physical science unit — plus thousands more standards-aligned resources across K–8 Science, ELA, Math, and Social Studies.
In fourth grade, students dive into physical science through the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), specifically the PS3 standards that focus on energy. This is the year students build foundational understanding of what energy is, how it moves, and how it can be harnessed — concepts they’ll build on through middle and high school.
The 4-PS3 standards ask students to explore four big ideas: the relationship between speed and energy (faster objects have more energy), how energy transfers from place to place through heat, light, sound, and electricity, what happens to energy during collisions, and how engineers design devices that convert energy from one form to another. These ideas connect naturally to students’ everyday experiences — from rolling balls down ramps to flipping light switches.
At Workybooks, we’ve built this complete physical science unit around all four NGSS performance expectations (4-PS3-1 through 4-PS3-4). Each of our 28 topics includes a standards-aligned reading passage written at an appropriate Lexile level for 4th graders, plus worksheets, activities, and anchor charts that help students build and demonstrate understanding. Whether you’re a classroom teacher looking for print-and-go resources or a homeschool parent building a science curriculum, your Workybooks subscription gives you instant access to everything you need.
