Make a Razor Blade Climb

Make a Razor Blade Climb

You will need: Magnet, razor blade, card, apple, assortment of small articles.

To test the powers of a magnet, spread an assortment of small articles on the table. Include an apple.

First try out the magnet on the apple. You will quickly discover that it will not attract fruit. Nor will it attract wood, glass, chalk, cardboard, cloth, or rubber.

You will soon discover, however, that things made from iron and steel, such as a key, razor blade and nail are not only attracted to the magnet, but also attract each other while under the magnet's influence.

Now take a sheet of thin card and using the magnet as in the photo, make a razor blade climb up the piece of card while it is sloping steeply.

Push a nail into the top of the apple so that it looks like a metal stalk. Now the magnet will be able to lift the apple from the table.

Children learn best through doing

Before children can understand a thing, they need experience: seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, smelling; choosing, arranging, putting things together, taking things apart. Experimenting with real things.

Old-time school teaching used only words and the teachers thought children knew something if they could repeat it. Now we know better. To reach practical understanding we do not need to use many words with young children.

Children are clever. They learn a lot, without being taught. The greatest skill - to be able to talk, to communicate is learnt outside school. In the classroom it's the children who need to talk the most. Unfortunately it is the teacher who does most of the talking!