Elementary Magnets

Lilly and Sunflower have been doing some more magnet exploration this week.

Yesterday they worked on magnetic fields. They started by lining 4 paperclips up in a row and slowly pushing a bar magnet towards them and examining the shape they moved into,

next they used iron filings to explore the magnetic field of different magnets - horseshoe, circular and bar magnets.

Meanwhile Rose and Tulip explored my great masterpiece - the magnet tray!

This is two pieces of clear perspex with iron filings in the middle, I used a hot glue gun to seal the edges so no filings could escape.

It gave them the freedom to explore magnets, magnetic fields and generally have fun whilst keeping them safe from eating or spilling the filings :)


They also played a couple of magnetic games - funny faces, fishing and car races.

Today Sunflower and Lilly worked on repulsion - they explored how the opposite ends of a magnet attract each other but the same ends repel. They strapped a magnet to a plastic car and measured the distance it repelled from a stationary magnet, they also played with floating magnets and made a magnetic butterfly that hovered above another magnet (sorry no photos today as my camera batteries were flat)
After reading about the uses of magnets in every day life they are really looking forward to making a train hover above the rails - we may attempt it tomorrow or leave it to next week.(depending how crafty I'm feeling)