↔️
🎯
🧱
✦ KNOW PRIMARY · AGES 6 TO 14 ✦

SCIENCE

Push & pull: all about forces. What shoves, what tugs, and what you can draw with arrows—without the scary part.

📖 250 Topics 🆓 FREE + PRO ⏱️ 5 min per comic 🧠 Quiz included
👆
PUSH
Away you go
→
🤚
PULL
Come here
→
🤝
TOUCH
Contact forces
→
🌍
HIDDEN
No touch needed
→
➡️
ARROWS
Forces in pictures
🎯 PUSH & PULL: ALL ABOUT FORCES
TOPIC 06 · FORCES & MOTION · CONTACT · NON-CONTACT
PAGE 1 OF 5 · WHAT IS A FORCE?
BUMPS, TUGS, SQUEEZES
Comic illustration showing a child pushing a cart and pulling a rope, introducing the concept that every force is either a push or a pull with arrows showing the direction of each force
A FORCE IS A PUSH OR A PULL
In everyday words, a force is something that tries to move you (or a thing) or change how it is already moving. You cannot put a force in a jar, but you see the effects: a cart rolls, a rope goes tight, a book sits still on a table with hidden pushes balancing.

Kid read aloud: “A shove is a push. A tug on a string is a pull. Grown ups draw them as arrows so we can talk without arguing about feelings.”
ONE TIGHT LINE (BIG KIDS)
When all the forces on an object (all directions added as vectors) are summed into a net force, an easy form for straight-line motion in school is Fnet = m a (with m in kilograms, a in m/s², F in newtons). That is a model for when mass stays about the same and relativity is not the star of the day.
SHOVE!
EFFECTS
Comic illustration of a rocket launching with a massive push force from burning gas, showing how forces can speed up, slow down, or change the direction of moving objects
🚀 A big push from hot gas can speed up a rocket. Same idea as kicking a ball, only louder.
🛑 A brake push against a wheel is how we slow a bike on purpose.
DIRECTION MATTERS
Comic illustration of a spring scale and a tug-of-war rope, showing that forces have both a size and a direction — both must be considered to understand the outcome
🧲 A spring scale and a tug-of-war rope both care about which way the shove is aimed and how big it is, not the colour of the rope.
PAGE 2 OF 5 · CONTACT FORCES (YOU TOUCH SOMETHING)
HANDS, FLOOR, FRICTION
Comic illustration showing a variety of contact forces: a hand pushing a box (applied force), shoes on a floor (friction), a rope under tension, and a surface providing a normal support force
MUST TOUCH: APPLIED, FRICTION, NORMAL, TENSION…
Contact means something is touching something. Your hand on a box gives an applied push. The ground stops your shoes with a normal support (it is a push at a surface, not “normal boring”). A rope in tension pulls at both ends. Friction is a sideways assist that tries to stop or limit slip at rough surfaces. Air drag you met in the last topic is contact with a thin fluid.
REMEMBER
“Contact” is not the same as “I feel it in my heart,” it is literal touch in science class, between molecules at surfaces, even if the surface is smooth to your eyes.
TOUCH!
FRICTION
Comic illustration comparing an ice skater gliding on low-friction ice versus a rubber sole gripping a dry road, showing how surface texture changes the amount of friction force
🧊 Less grip (ice) → easier slide. More texture (rubber on dry road) → more grip. Same push, different contact story.
BRAKES
Comic illustration of bicycle brake pads pressing against a wheel rim, showing how friction is deliberately created as a contact force to slow a cyclist safely
🚲 Pads and rims make friction on purpose so the wheel and road can play together and you stop safely.
TUG OF WAR
Comic illustration of two teams pulling a rope in a tug-of-war, showing how opposing contact forces act through tension and how the net force determines which side wins
🤝 Ropes, hands, and teams add pulls and pulls back. We sum them more carefully in the arrows comic, but the feeling is: who wins the net shove?
PAGE 3 OF 5 · NON-CONTACT (STILL A FORCE)
GRAVITY
Comic illustration of an apple falling from a tree toward Earth, showing gravity as a non-contact force that pulls objects downward without needing to physically touch them
🍎 Earth pulls on stuff without you touching it first. That pull is a key part of the weight mg story. Big topic on its own, but it is a force for sure.
COMING LATER
Comic illustration teasing magnets and static electricity as non-contact forces, showing objects attracting or repelling across empty space without touching
🧲 Magnet and static electricity are also non-contact pushes and pulls, with their own rules. A future comic will unpack the magnet map.
GRAVITY IS EVERYWHERE (HERE)
Comic illustration of everyday gravity as a non-contact force — showing a person standing on the floor with gravity pulling them down and the floor's normal force pushing them up, both drawn as arrows
NO STRING NEEDED
You are not glued to the floor, but the floor still pushes you up so you do not fall through, while gravity pulls you down at the same time. Free-body diagrams in class draw those with neat little arrows so the story fits on one small sketch.
HOLD!
PAGE 4 OF 5 · ARROWS & “NET”
FORCE AS AN ARROW
Comic illustration of a free-body diagram showing an object with labelled force arrows pointing in different directions, demonstrating how physicists represent forces as vectors with direction and size
DIRECTION, LENGTH, LABEL
A useful picture: each force is an arrow on the object you study. The arrow’s length is “how big,” and the way it points is “which way the push or pull is trying to go” at that moment. If many arrows act, you can add them as vectors to a net (resultant) push or pull, then ask what Fnet = m a says for straight-line work.

Topic 10 in this series is the balance game (tug of war in picture form) — here, just know: forces are arrows you can add with rules, not random doodles. SI force unit: the newton (N). One newton is about the weight of a small apple in Earth gravity — a handy memory size, not a new religion.
DRAW!
KID TALK
Comic illustration of a single box being pushed by multiple forces from different sides, showing how the net force — the total of all pushes and pulls added together — decides how the box moves
“If a bunch of shoves and tugs fight, the winner of the total is the one that decides the speed-up story for a little while, until new forces show up.”
SYMBOLS
Comic illustration of a physics lab chalkboard showing force symbols — F for force, Fg for gravity force, Ff for friction force — explaining how subscripts are used to label different forces in equations
F for a force size, often with a little note like Fg or Ff for gravity or friction. Keep units clean: newtons, kilograms, metres per second squared, as your problem asks.
NOT YET
Comic illustration of a space station orbiting Earth, used as a teaser for upcoming topics on balanced and unbalanced forces, showing that the same push-and-pull language applies even in space
Balanced and unbalanced forces, friction tricks, and big space stations use the same picture language — a later page will camp on equilibrium. Today: name the pushes and pulls.
PAGE 5 OF 5 · TAKE IT WITH YOU
FOUR WAYS THE WORLD POKES
Comic summary illustration showing four key force types acting on a skateboarder: gravity pulling down, normal force pushing up from the board, friction at the wheels, and a friend's push — all drawn as arrows
FORCES ARE A TEAM SPORT
The same you on a skateboard is a tangle of gravity, normal from the board, a little friction, maybe a push from a friend — all at once. Science gets easier when you name each arrow, one at a time, then add them like a careful coach with a whiteboard, not a shouting match. Next topics build the balance and magnet stories, still with the same push-and-pull bones.
NICE!
REMEMBER
Comic recap illustration of contact forces — applied push, friction, normal force, and tension — used as a visual reminder of the key force types covered in this topic
🔑 KEY FACTS
Force = push or pull · Contact needs touch; gravity is a key non-contact pull (more forces later) · Draw arrows on the object · Net force and Fnet = m a in simple straight-line work · 1 N is a small apple weight in Earth g for memory.
READ ALOUD
“A force is a shove or a tease to move. Some need touch, some don’t — like the whole Earth pulling you. If you are stuck or speeding, look for arrows in your life, not a magic mood. Science is on your side, one push at a time.”

High five! ✋
🧠 QUIZ TIME!
FORCES · 5 QUESTIONS
QUESTION 01
In the simplest school words, a force is what?
QUESTION 02
Which one is a contact force in everyday use?
QUESTION 03
Which is the usual non-contact pull you feel every day near Earth’s surface (before fancy electricity tricks)?
QUESTION 04
In SI, which unit is the one named for forces?
QUESTION 05
A straight-line form that matches “net force, mass, acceleration” in many first lessons is: Fnet = m a. If you double the net force and keep mass the same, acceleration usually —
0/5
LOADING...
← TOPIC 05 📋 ALL TOPICS TOPIC 07 →