back to magnetism

T wanted to repeat the magnetism experiments of several months ago, so on his own he and W looked at how magnetic force can pull through glass and water and how magnets only attract iron, not glass (glass marbles were not drawn to magnet). T then described his experiment to me.

A month ago ben also made a game with boys demonstrating how magnetic force works through cardboard. They drew a racing track on strong cardboard and made paper cars with paperclips stuck to the bottom. A magnet applied to the paperclip from underneath the cardboard pulls the paper car around the track.

skeletons

T. has fascination with "skeleton bones", We have:

• discussed different bones in body and identified them on ourselves
• borrowed book on skeletal system from library
• watched descriptions of skeletal system on you tube
• collected animal bones from bush and tried to identify: wallaby skulls, cow skull, vertebrae, rib bones, leg bones. NB extension: borrow book on animal skeletal systems and try to identify more accurately.
• bought book on skeletal and other body systems and extended reading to nervous, muscular and circulatory systems
• visited both Australian museum and Bathurst's Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum with excellent dinosaur displays, seen whale skeletons in Whale museum, Albany WA
• at one point T had his own museum display on the toyshelf of all the rocks and bones he'd found in garden

A Wallaby skull?

magnetism

Read section on magnetism in Harcourt Science level K to T day before. He wanted to do magnetism experiments listed in book. So we did three experiments:
(a) what do magnets attract? We tested magnets on different materials eg plastic, types of metals and we confirmed that magnets attract iron.
(b) Showing that magnetic force can act through some solid objects: Placed an iron object in a glass of water and showed that object was attracted to magnet through glass. Also worked through place mat and cardboard
(c) compared strength of two different magnets by seeing how many paper clips each attracted: counting paperclips