Magnetic Fields

We're back to exploring properties of solids (after a brief visit with liquids for the bubble workshop)! This week, we've discovered magnets and explored how they work.

Why do we study magnets? 

To begin, we read the book What Makes a Magnet? (It's a great book with lots of ideas on how you and your student can make magnets at home!) The book helped us to understand why magnets are such a special type of solid.

The students learned that magnets pick up other solid things that have iron in them. Then, they brainstormed what types of things WOULD be picked up by a magnet (paper clips, staples, other magnets, etc) and what WOULDN'T be (paper, elastic bands, plastic).

Also, the students learned that each magnet has two poles - a north and south pole. I asked the students to try and observe their magnets' poles. Some were successful in finding that some magnets didn't want to come together easily and we discussed that it was because it was the same pole (north to north or south to south) they were trying to connect. Once the students turned over the magnet, they stuck together easily. The students who found this happening during our exploration were really fascinated by it!

Then, it was off to exploring magnets on our own.

Here are a few pictures of the students in action!