In most physical science courses the textbook is the course. Students read a chapter, work the problems at the end, and arrive at lab — if there is a lab — to confirm what the book already told them. We invert that order. In this course the bench comes first and the reading comes second. The text does not deliver the physical science; it explains, deepens, and names what the student has already seen with their own hands.
That is why we say the reading sits underneath the bench, not in front of it. A student who has just watched a cart speed up as the ramp is raised reads the forces-and-motion section with a question already answered — and the chapter sharpens it. The reading lands because it has somewhere to land. Reading without that prior encounter is the thing students forget over the summer; reading anchored to an experience is the thing they keep. So everything below we recommend — we don’t require it. A family that runs the labs and reads two of these trade books slowly will get more from the year than one that grinds every chapter and never rolls a cart down a ramp.
The textbook is not the teacher. The bench is the teacher; the text is the reference you reach for afterward.
What follows is a short, deliberately curated list — not an exhaustive bibliography. Everything here is either free, optional, or chosen because it does something a textbook can’t.
Free core texts
You do not need to buy a textbook to run this course well. Two genuinely free options cover everything in the course map at the right level for grades 6-9.
- CK-12 Middle School Physical Science. A free, modular text written for exactly this grade band, with adjustable reading levels and built-in practice. Its chapters map cleanly onto our eight units — matter and its properties, atoms and the periodic table, chemical-and-physical changes, forces and motion, energy and its forms, heat and thermal energy, waves and sound and light, and electricity and magnetism. This is our default reference text — when a lab note says “read more on how heat moves,” this is where to go.
- The Physics Classroom. A free online set of clear, patient tutorials on motion, forces, energy, waves, sound, light, and simple circuits, with animations and check-your-understanding questions. Excellent as a second explanation when a topic in the forces, energy, or electricity units needs to land a different way — and strong on exactly the physics half of the course.
Between these two, a family can run the entire year without spending a dollar on text. Start a younger or struggling reader in CK-12, then reach for The Physics Classroom when a concept needs a second angle.
The optional textbook
If you would rather have one physical book on the shelf, one paid option is worth considering — though it is genuinely optional.
- CPO Science, Foundations of Physical Science (or a comparable middle-school physical science survey such as Prentice Hall Physical Science: Concepts in Action). Either is a standard, classroom-tested survey written for this age band — clear diagrams, worked examples, and end-of-section questions across matter, forces, energy, waves, and electricity. A used earlier edition costs a fraction of the current one and loses almost nothing for our purposes; the core science has not changed. Buy one only if you want a single bound reference to live with for the year. Otherwise the free texts above are entirely sufficient.
Trade books that bring physical science alive
This is the part of the list we care about most. A textbook tells you what is true; these books show you how the truth was found — the false starts, the stubborn measurements, the human stakes. They are how a student comes to feel that physical science is a living investigation rather than a settled catalog. Recommend one per semester as a slow read alongside the lab work. All of these are written for readers in the grades 6-9 range.
- The Way Things Work Now — David Macaulay. A gloriously illustrated tour of the machines and forces of everyday life — levers and ramps, gears and motion, heat, waves, magnets, and electric circuits — all explained through a running cast of mammoths. The single best companion to the whole course: it touches nearly every unit, and it makes the physics of ordinary things feel obvious once you see it drawn.
- The Electric Life of Michael Faraday — Alan Hirshfeld. The accessible biography of the bookbinder’s apprentice with almost no schooling who taught himself science, discovered how a magnet can make electricity, and lit the path to the electric world. This is the book behind the year’s integration story in Unit 08 — a wonder-and-self-education anchor that reaches into history, reading, and writing all at once.
- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Readers Edition) — William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer. The true story of a Malawian teenager who, self-taught from library books, built a working windmill to bring electricity to his village. A natural pairing with the energy and electricity units — and a modern echo of Faraday’s own self-made curiosity.
- Isaac Newton (Giants of Science) — Kathleen Krull. A short, lively biography of the man who worked out the rules of forces and motion — honest about how strange and stubborn he was, and clear about why his laws still run the ramp-and-cart bench today. Best beside the forces-and-motion unit.
- Physics: Why Matter Matters! (Basher Science) — Dan Green & Simon Basher (optional fifth). A friendly, cartoon-guided survey of matter, forces, energy, waves, and electricity that a reluctant reader will actually pick up. A fine light companion for the whole year.
Reference works
Finally, a couple of reference works earn their shelf space — things to keep open on the bench, not to read cover to cover.
- A good wall-mounted periodic table — a large, clear, color-coded table pinned above the bench is referenced across the atoms-and-elements unit and beyond. Cheap, durable, and far more useful in eyeshot than buried in a chapter.
- A one-page formulas-and-units card for the measuring work — speed as distance over time, force and mass, energy, and the simple circuit relationship — with each quantity and its unit, so a student can check their setup against a known-good reference.
- A simple bench-safety card for the physical-science lab — not reading, but a habit: hot surfaces, batteries and wires, ramps and moving carts, and strong magnets, with the one-line rule for each. Know the hazards of what you handle before you pick it up.
Keep the list short and the books close. A family that reads two of these trade books slowly, anchored to real lab work, will finish the year with something a stack of chapters never delivers: the sense that physical science is a thing people do, and that the student has now done a little of it.