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We played with lots of magnets today. We used a lot of the activities from this site to learn about north and south poles on a magnet, attraction, repelling, and magnetic field.

We also used the magnets that I got in this kit.

First we used the wand to pick up as many paper clips as we could; 56

Then GB ran around the house looking for things that the magnet would be attracted to, being very careful to stay away from electronics (see below).

One activity was to put a file on a disc, exposed it to the magnet, check the file and see that the magnet has ruined it.  Magnets will ruin discs, computers, tvs, video game players, etc. So be careful with your magnets.

Our next activity was to crush up some cereal that is fortified with extra iron.

Add water to make it into a soupy mixture. Then put your magnet into a ziplock back and drag it through the soupy stuff.  The magnet will grab the iron right out of your cereal. Next smear what you brought up onto a white piece of paper.

We had to check under the microscope, but darned if they weren’t there, just as promised. Creepy!

See the little black dots? That’s the iron. The yellowish stuff is the cereal.

The following video shows a dollar bill responding to our magnet. We were stunned to find out that they use a bit of iron in dollar bills to make them harder to forge. You’re supposed to try this experiment with a stronger magnet, but ours did just fine.

Because magnets repel each other when the alike poles are facing each other, we were able to make this green magnet float above the red one. If you pressed down on the green one it would be forced back up.

This was the coolest magnetic viewing film. When a magnet is placed under the viewing film the tiny metal flakes respond to the magnetic field, forming shapes similar to the pattern of magnetization. The while lines show the separation between the north and south poles of the magnet.

I loved the basket weave pattern in this flat magnet.

      

This inch wide yellow magnet had horizontal stripes when viewed with the film.

      

This tiny 1/2 orange magnet had a solid pattern.

     

So did this green one.

    

And the circle.

You could see where the magnet ended in our wand by using the viewing film. This was a pretty powerful wand.

GB and I had a lot of fun today with our magnets. I can’t believe we’ve never played with them before! Shocking!

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