Why Do Curlers Sweep the Ice?

Give students a real-world reason to care about friction. This one-page news reading shows how Olympic curlers sweep the ice to control a sliding stone — connecting a sport students may have watched to the science of forces and motion. Ideal as a daily bell-ringer, morning work, sub plan, or reading center.

What's Included

• A kid-friendly news story written for grades 3-5
• What's the Story? comprehension check
• What's Happening? fill-in-the-blank sequence chain with a word bank
• Cause and Effect matching task
• Why Does It Matter? short writing prompt with a sentence starter
• A full teacher answer key with NGSS alignment, links to the original news articles, and a science-connection summary

How It Helps You Teach

Use it to hook a unit on forces and motion, show students that science lives outside the textbook, and build nonfiction reading skills at the same time. The mixed question types mirror state-test formats, so students practice comprehension, sequencing, cause and effect, and evidence-based writing on a single page — and the linked sources let you show families and administrators the content is real. Print and go in 5-10 minutes, no prep.

Looking for more? Check out our library for vocabulary, inference, and sorting activities on this same topic that pair perfectly with this one for bell-ringers and morning work all week.

NGSS 3-PS2-1 • CCSS RI.3.1 • Part of the Daily Science series by Workybooks.