magnets- preschool style

I've been sorely neglecting my blog lately. I'm on day four of a massive pool cleanup project and the garden has been more work this spring since we increased the size and capacity.  I'm not sure if those are the things that have been keeping me busier, but I do feel busier than normal.  School is out for me in a few days and Bee has only 7 more, so I'm sure things will slow down a bit here really soon.

This lesson is a few weeks old, but we did some magnet work.  I had brought in these two stuffed dogs that have little magnets in their noses and sort of kissy faced each other.  I can't remember what lesson I used them with but the kids loved them and I knew I wanted to do magnets when given the chance.   -I just found it:  I used the dogs in a valentines day hot potato game.

Anyway, I found these great magnets at Blick art store and used some birthday money and some 40% off coupons to get them.  They are nice and strong and had the right 'look' to them.  I was able to get one magnet per friend.

This was a shorert lesson since we had graduation practice this day.  I walked the kids through a chart with items to test for their magnetic-ness (spell check says that's not a word- seriously?).  We made predictions and checked our guess.  The one we all guessed wrong about was the pop can. 

After I felt pretty sure they understood the process,  I gave them a partner, one sheet per friend and a bag of things to test.  They worked spread out around the room testing the items in their bags and recording their answers.

I had tried to make sure that each group had at least one student in it that I felt could figure this activity out and record it properly.  A few groups had it just right, but there were groups marking every box and groups marking nothing.  

When the kids were mostly done, I called them back to the circle and we went over the answers.  I had a large sheet just like their individual sheet.  We don't have a lot of technology... ok, any technology at our preschool.  I could have just had it loaded up on the smart-board, but we'll probably never have one of those.  We're old school- crank pencil sharpeners, chalkboards, and we even ring a hand bell to get their attention.

I finally got Lou to let me bring in our magnet building pieces.  I bought these when I was pregnant with Bee and saved them for years before letting her play with them.  Lou has taken them as his own now. 

I have a magnet book in a box in storage somewhere, and didn't get to the library to find one.  Instead, I read this Pledge of Allegiance book.  We are saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the graduation program and our class has not been saying it all year.  We needed to hear the words more clearly and do a little practice.

When my parents came for pick up time, one of the moms asked her son if he had given me what was in his cubby.  It was a magnet book- a really good one that would have made for a great read aloud today. We all had a good laugh about it.  Oh well, next year.