Teaching Your Kids Lately? Here’s Some Fun Racing Physics Lessons From the Indy Motor Speedway Museum
From fun coloring activities to in-depth lessons on racecar dynamics.
Chances are the shelter-in-place orders taking effect nationwide have interrupted your kids' schooling, and as a result, keeping them cooped up has made them destroy everything you once called "home," or at the very least forced you to work from home wearing noise-canceling headphones and a sleeping mask (don't ask us how that works). Now more than ever you need a few activity ideas to keep them occupied, and if trying to raise your little one into the next professional sim racer isn't in your budget, then you might wanna take a look at some resources the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum just released for teachers and parents alike.
Depending on the pupil's age, the activities found on the Museum's education page can range from a basic coloring activity to a multi-hour lesson on racecar physics. This series of cool worksheets might keep your kids quiet for a few hours (yay!) and prepare them for a STEM career—like engineering or even driving multi-million-dollar Dallara Indycars.
They include simple, minutes-long activities such as a maze, a race car coloring sheet, and a self-portrait exercise so kids can imagine what they'd look like on the side of the famous BorgWarner trophy. Slightly older kids may be able to solve the crossword puzzle or read through the racing flag guide so they can safely take up karting when coronavirus race cancellations stop being a thing.
Older kids (roughly ages 3-6) in need of some more serious schooling can be assigned a two-hour lesson on physics or the humanities, specifically pertaining to race car weight transfer and the history of how competition can drive technical innovation. If they find either or both of these lessons engrossing, then you can assign them some reading about the groundbreaking Koenigsegg Gemera hypercar as homework extra credit.
We know it's tough out there juggling work and family from home while having to track down toilet paper on Facebook Marketplace, but we'll get through this together. Or so we hope.
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