Printable Crossword Puzzles on Force and Motion 4th Grade

Print a criss-cross force and motion crossword for 4th grade, clued by everyday examples, with its answer key.

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Force and Motion Crossword

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Answer key: Force and Motion Crossword

1WH2EELA3M4ROU5GH6FLOATROH7MASS8SPINVI9SMOOTHPY10BENDE11WIND

Across 1 WHEEL · 4 ROUGH · 6 FLOAT · 7 MASS · 8 SPIN · 9 SMOOTH · 10 BEND · 11 WIND

Down 2 EARTH · 3 MOON · 5 GRAVITY · 9 SPEED

Next step Find force and motion words in a word searchPrint the magnetism crossword

All 124 clues

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Pushes, Pulls and Other Forces 28

  • Attract Bring nearer without touching
  • Balanced Like the forces on a rope when two even teams strain and nothing moves
  • Bend Force into a curved shape
  • Buoyancy Upward force of a liquid on a thing placed in it
  • Contact Kind of force that needs touching
  • Drag Air pushing back on a speeding bike rider
  • Elastic Able to return to its shape after being pulled long
  • Float What a cork does in a bucket of water
  • Friction It warms your hands when you rub them together
  • Gravity It keeps your feet on the ground and makes rain come down
  • Lift Upward force that holds an airplane in the air
  • Magnet It makes steel paper clips jump to it
  • Mass It is found with a balance and counted in grams
  • Net Kind of force left over when all the forces on an object are added together
  • Pressure It is high under a thumbtack's point and low under a snowshoe
  • Pull Move something toward you by tugging
  • Push What you give a shopping cart to get it going
  • Repel Force apart without touching
  • Resistance With 'air,' the force that makes a feather drift down slowly
  • Sink What a stone does when it is tossed in a pond
  • Spring Metal coil inside a click pen
  • Squeeze What a hand does to a sponge
  • Strength How big a force is
  • Stretch Make longer by pulling
  • Tension Pulling force carried along a tight string or cable
  • Thrust Forward force made by a jet engine
  • Tug Give a quick, hard yank
  • Weight How hard the planet draws an object down, measured in newtons

Describing Motion 29

  • Acceleration Rate at which a moving thing gets faster, slower or turns
  • Bounce What a rubber ball does off the pavement
  • Coast Keep rolling with no more pedaling or pushing
  • Collide What bumper cars are built to do
  • Constant Not changing
  • Curve Smoothly rounding line
  • Direction North, south, up or down, for example
  • Distance It is measured in meters or miles
  • Fall What a leaf does in autumn
  • Graph Picture of measurements drawn on two axes
  • Launch Send off into the air
  • Momentum What a heavy, quick-moving thing has a lot of, making it hard to halt
  • Orbit Loop that a planet makes around the Sun
  • Path The line a moving object follows
  • Pendulum The swinging part of a grandfather clock
  • Position Where something is, told from a starting point
  • Projectile Thrown or launched object moving through the air
  • Rest A book lying on a desk is at this
  • Roll What a dropped orange does across the floor
  • Rotate What a doorknob does when you twist it
  • Slide What a hockey puck does across a rink
  • Speed How fast something is going
  • Spin What a top or a figure skater does on one spot
  • Stop Come to a halt
  • Straight Kind of line a moving object follows when no force turns it
  • Swing Back and forth it goes at the playground, a little lower each time
  • Velocity How fast and which way, said together
  • Vibrate What a plucked rubber band does
  • Zigzag Shape of a lightning bolt

Laws of Motion and Measuring 22

  • Arrow Pointed line drawn to show which way a force acts
  • Data Times and lengths recorded trial after trial
  • Diagram Labeled drawing, such as one of the forces on a book
  • Energy What a moving thing has because it is moving; it can be stored too
  • Equal Matching exactly in size or amount
  • Experiment Rolling a toy car down ramps of different heights is one
  • Galileo Italian scientist, born in Pisa in 1564, who studied how dropped and thrown things move
  • Inertia It is why you lurch forward when a bus brakes
  • Kilogram Metric unit; a liter of water is about one
  • Measure Put a number and a unit on something
  • Meter Metric length of about 39 inches
  • Newton Scientist whose name became the unit of force
  • Observe Notice with your eyes and ears what a test object does
  • Opposite Word for directions such as up and down, or left and right
  • Predict Guess ahead of time, using what you know
  • Reaction In the third law of motion, the force that answers every action
  • Ruler Desk tool with a row of little lines and numbers along its edge
  • Scale Tool you hang or stand things on to weigh them
  • Second One tick of a clock
  • Stopwatch Handheld timer started and halted by a button
  • Vacuum Space with no air in it, so nothing slows a dropping object
  • Work In science, it is done only when a force makes something move

Simple Machines 23

  • Axe Chopping tool with a sharp, thin-edged head
  • Axle A toy car's wheels turn on this thin bar
  • Crane Its long boom swings steel beams to the top of a tower
  • Crowbar Heavy bar with a claw at one end, for prying a crate open
  • Effort The force that the person supplies
  • Fulcrum The support a prying bar pivots on
  • Gear Its teeth lock into the teeth of the next one
  • Hammer Its claw pries out nails
  • Knife Kitchen cutter with a thin sharp edge
  • Lever Rigid bar that tips on a support to pry something up
  • Load The thing being lifted
  • Pivot Turn around one fixed spot, as a door does on its hinge
  • Pulley It lets you raise a bucket by pulling down on a cable
  • Ramp Slanted board that lets a heavy box be slid up, not lifted
  • Scissors Two crossed blades that close on paper
  • Screw Its spiral thread pulls it into wood as it turns
  • Seesaw Playground plank that tips up and down on a center support
  • Shovel Snow or dirt mover with a blade and a long shaft
  • Slope Slant of a hill
  • Tweezers Tiny tongs for pulling out a splinter
  • Wedge Shape of a doorstop: thick at one end, thin at the other
  • Wheel Round part of a skateboard, a cart or a simple machine
  • Winch A handle winds its cable to haul a boat onto a trailer

Forces Around You 22

  • Astronaut Traveler who drifts about inside a spacecraft
  • Brake It squeezes a bike's rim to slow it down
  • Catapult Old machine built to hurl heavy stones a long way
  • Catch Bring a flying ball to a halt in a glove
  • Earth The planet under your feet
  • Grip Hold that keeps a shoe from slipping
  • Ice Frozen pond top that sends boots slipping
  • Kick Force from a foot that sends a soccer ball flying
  • Kite Toy that moving air holds up on a string
  • Marble Little glass sphere sent racing down a toy track
  • Moon Where you would weigh about one sixth of what you do at home
  • Parachute Cloth canopy that catches air so a jumper comes down slowly
  • Pedal Foot-pushed part that turns a bike's chain
  • Rocket Hot gas rushes down and it shoots up
  • Rough Bumpy to the touch; such surfaces rub harder
  • Skate Glide over a frozen pond on a thin blade
  • Sled Winter toy that turns a white hillside into a ride
  • Slippery Like a wet, soapy floor
  • Smooth Like glass or a polished floor
  • Throw Force from an arm that sends a ball on its way
  • Wagon Four-wheeler a child pulls along by its handle
  • Wind Moving air that pushes a sailboat

How this list was compiled: Clues written for this site for grade 4 and 5 science, in five sets: pushes, pulls and other forces, describing motion, the laws of motion and measuring, simple machines, and forces around you. Each science fact was checked against English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA 4.0), and each answer in Wiktionary and the American Heritage Dictionary, in October 2026. Most clues are everyday examples, not definitions. No clue was copied from a published puzzle. Licence: own work

How it works

In these printable crossword puzzles on force and motion, Friction warms your hands when you rub them together, and Inertia is why you lurch forward when a bus brakes. It opens on 12 easy words such as Gravity and Float.

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Five sets for the unit

Pushes, Pulls and Other Forces has Gravity, Friction, Tension and Buoyancy. Describing Motion has Speed, Velocity and Acceleration. Laws of Motion and Measuring has Inertia, Reaction and Newton. Simple Machines has Lever, Pulley and Wedge. Forces Around You has Sled, Kite and Parachute.

Match the set to the lesson

Print Describing Motion after a ramp experiment, when Speed, Distance and Direction are fresh. Simple Machines works alone as a review: Lever, Fulcrum, Load and Effort are all there, with tools such as Scissors and Crowbar.

  • Mass and Weight can land in one puzzle: Mass is counted in grams, Weight is measured in newtons.

Questions and answers

What grade is the force and motion crossword for?

Easy Force and Motion Words suits grades 3 and 4. The five themed sets fit a 4th or 5th grade unit, with words such as Velocity and Momentum. These bands are our judgment, not a published standard.

Can I use it as a force and motion worksheet for 5th grade?

Yes. Choose Laws of Motion and Measuring under Clue set for Energy, Work and Vacuum, or Describing Motion for Momentum and Projectile. The sheet prints with a Name and Date line.

Is the force and motion crossword free, with an answer key?

Yes, free and with no sign-up. The sheets fit Letter or A4, and every print ends with the answer key on a separate sheet.

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