One day, two girls were playing in the park. It was a beautiful day, when one girl says to the other we should have a picnic! The other girl thought that was a great idea and they both went home to pack their picnic basket. 

Oh no!

It's too heavy!

The girls found a perfect spot to have their picnic on top of a lovely hill, but they had a problem... Their picnic basket was way too heavy for them to carry up the hill! They pushed and pulled the basket as much as they could, but it still wouldn't budge what ever would they do?

I can help!

A man walking by with white curly hair offers to help the girls with their picnic problem. He introduces himself

" Hello my name is Mr. Newton and I am a teacher. I couldn't help but notice you trying to push your picnic basket up that hill."

"We tried everything!" said one of the girls 

"I think I might be able to help, but first you must understand the laws of motion."

"The first law of motion is that an object that is moving will continue moving and an object staying still will continue to be still unless an unbalanced force acts on it."

They walked over to the field.

" Take a look at this soccer ball it is not moving and it will not move unless one of us kicks it. We would be the unbalanced force."

" If the ball was moving, an unbalanced force would also have to act on it to make it stop" 

"This is the same as your picnic basket. It is at rest so it wants to stay at rest and when you push on it, you are the unbalanced force." explained Mr. Newton

"But if we are the force, why when we push the basket it doesn't move?" asked the girls

Look it moved!

Mr. Newton explained the second law to help the girls understand.

" Let's learn the second law, force is equal to mass times acceleration. This means that force and mass determine the acceleration. Let's look at your picnic basket, it is very heavy so it will take a lot of force to move." 

" Now if we make the basket less heavy by taking some food out, it will be easier to move"

"Wow it really is a little bit easier to move!"

Mr. Newton, the basket is still very hard to push even when we take the food out. I wonder why.

Mr. Newton explained to her that there are still two more lessons to learn before they can get the answer to their problem. 

"Let's learn the Third Law. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that for every force, there is force of the same amount but in the other direction."

Normal Force

Gravity

"Let's talk about gravity! Gravity is the force that keeps us on the ground. If there was no gravity, we would always be floating."

" The opposite of gravity is the normal force. While gravity pulls us down to the ground, the normal force pushes us up"

"So when we are just standing on the ground, Newton's third law is acting upon us."