Potential and Kinetic Energy - Context Clues Activity

Energy Vocabulary in One Page: Context Clues

Before students can compare energy forms, they need the words. This one-page activity introduces four key terms - potential energy, kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy, and elastic potential energy - through quick, concrete sentences (a book on a shelf, a rolling ball, lifting an object, a pulled-back bowstring). Students read each sentence, use the clues around the underlined word, and circle the best meaning. Print it as a bell-ringer, morning work, or a sub-plan slot.

What's Included

• 1 student page: 4 illustrated context-clue cards, each with three answer choices
• 1 teacher key page with the correct meaning for every term
• Letter-size PDF, no prep

How It Helps You Teach

• Front-loads the exact vocabulary students need for a TEKS 6.8A unit
• The distractors do the teaching - they cross-confuse stored vs. moving energy and the types of potential energy
• Introduces gravitational and elastic potential energy alongside the umbrella terms

Pair It With

Part of a Potential and Kinetic Energy set: Context Clues, Inferences, Science in the News, the Potential or Kinetic sort, and a Reading in Science. Check out our library for the rest.

Perfect for 6th grade physical science, science vocabulary and literacy practice, a bell-ringer or warm-up, and TEKS 6.8A review. Topics include: potential energy, kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy, and elastic potential energy.

Standards: TEKS 6.8A (compare and contrast gravitational, elastic, and chemical potential energies with kinetic energy); NGSS DCI PS3.A. Part of the Daily Science series by Workybooks.