Magnets, Magnets, and More Magnets

For the past few weeks, we have been doing a study of magnets. It’s been interesting as well as fun.

For our magnet sensory bin, I paired it with worksheets for the kids to fill out with a spot for them to either write the name of the item or draw a picture of it (for my pre-readers) and then fill in whether it was magnetic or not.

The sensory bin is a very simple one of white rice and various household objects, not all of which are magnetic.  I also included a strong magnet and a magnet wand.

I included magnet activities in the workbox rotation.  These included:

magnetic wand and chips

 

 

 

cut up pipe cleaners in a plastic bottle that can be moved around using a magnet or magnetic wand on the outside was a very popular activity

 

 

file folder game of sorting objects into magnetic and non-magnetic categories

 

 

 

 

 

I gave the kids worksheets (you can get them here) with a pile of objects to kick start our magnet unit:

This was a fun activity and easy for all the kids to understand.

 

 

The kids did all kinds of activities and experiments using this Magnet Science kit.  The one that the kids liked the best was when they could make it look like the little car was going on its own by moving a magnet under the table!

 

 

We also used Magnetic Marvels, a really neat kit that included lots of magnet tricks, which the boys loved and activities like extracting the iron from our cereal.

I also had plans to build a compass with the kids but the weather hasn’t been cooperating for that one, so we may pick that up when it gets nicer out.  I think the neatest part about our magnet study was how easy it was to adapt to the different ages and ability levels of the kids.  They made some great observations on their own and had a lot of fun with all of it!

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book.