An Introduction, and Magnets

In an effort to prevent "Summer Brain Mush" syndrome...I have decided to reinstate summer school. We did this last year, and the kids had a lot of fun. They looked forward to it every week, and as soon as school got out this year, they started asking for it again.

I let them choose what they want to learn about. It's not so much about learning things they would otherwise learn at school...it's more about helping them to love to learn. We do cover the basics as well, but our main focus each week is on some random aspect of life that has them wondering a bit...

So...after talking to a couple of other moms who want to do the same thing...I decided to start this blog. If you want to contribute, feel free. E-mail me and I will add you to the contributors list. It's just a place to share what has worked...what didn't work...what you might want to try, etc.

Here's a little overview of what we do. We start with some basic stuff...working on letters, letter sounds, handwriting, sight words, etc for Seth...and sentence structure, analogy, creative writing, and handwriting practices for Hannah. Then we move on to a little math. Hannah gets National Geographic Kids magazine...so I have her pick something she learned from the magazine, and teach us about it. Then we start the subject for the week. First I ask them what they already know about that subject. I keep a notebook for each of them and write what they already know at the beginning of the lesson. Then we go through the information that I collected for the week. We read library books, look stuff up on the internet, etc. After the lesson, I ask them what they know again, and record it in their notebooks. If they have learned several new things from the lesson, they get a sticker. Finally, we conclude with some kind of project. Sometimes it's an art project, sometimes it's a science project. Sometimes it's both.

And so...here is our first week of Summer School.


Subject: Magnets.

What they knew:

Hannah: "You can make a magnet by taking a magnet and something that's not a magnet, but made of metal and rubbing it together to make it a magnet."
and
"Stuff sticks to them."

Seth: "If they're not made out of metal and special stuff inside, then they won't stick."
and
"If they have the special stuff inside then they will stick."

We talked about:

• what types of things are magnetic
• how magnets have poles
• how unlike poles attract and like poles repel each other
• how steel objects can be turned into magnets
• a magnet that is free to turn will ultimately line up with it's poles in a north south fashion
• how the earth itself is a magnet
• how the earth being a magnet causes compasses to work
• how the first magnetic materials were discovered
• common household items that use magnets
• different types of magnets

And we experimented:

We tied a bar magnet to a string and let it dangle. It lined up pointing north/south. We played with a bunch of different types of magnets, and watched the like poles push each other away, and unlike poles suck together. We put a bunch of items in a box and guessed which ones would be magnetic (i.e. toothpick, christmas light, paper clip, screws, pennies, plastic game pieces, etc.) They discovered that certain magnets were strong enough to stick together even with their lip in the middle of them. Oh joy.

PSA: No children were choked by magnets in the making of this blog post...

Then we painted:

We put a magnetic marble on top of a paper plate with some paint. Then we took our magnet wands and held them underneath the plate. The kids LOVED watching the marble move as if by magic. The marble would spin, but not roll, due to the pole attraction on one side, and it made for some cool splattering.

At the end, this is what they had learned:

Hannah: "Magnets are made from Iron, Nickel, Steel and Cobalt. They have poles. They can be different shapes. They have a magnetic field."

Seth: "They stick together. They can stick to only certain kinds of rock. Lights have wires that are magnetic. If it spins, it will stop pointing North."

Next week: Rocket ships, and other space exploration vehicles.