I haven’t set up our full classroom since we’ve moved into the new house, but I have pulled out a few works to keep William occupied while G does her math and reading each day. Our magnet set is one of them, and both kids find it fascinating and love to experiment with it. Here are 5 activities we love doing with magnets.
1. What sticks?
Gram doesn’t stick to a magnet . . . 
but her walker does.
This one is Will’s favorite. Quite simply, you hand a child a magnet and send them out to explore the house, reporting back to you what sticks and what doesn’t. With Will, we only talk about what he finds that sticks and what doesn’t, with G, who’s a little bit older, we can make a list together of items that are magnetic and items that aren’t. Then we see if we can find the similarities and discover what types of items are and aren’t magnetic (i.e. wooden items will never stick, metal items always will).
2. How strong is your magnet? a counting activity
This can be done in a lot of ways, using either a horseshoe or wand magnet. You can either just have the children see how many objects their magnet can pick up or see how long of a train they can make. Then you count the objects.
3. Color sorting with a magnet
William struggles with his colors, so I take every opportunity I can get to reinforce his knowledge. Today we played color games using our magnet and different types of objects. I asked him to use his magnet wand to pick up all of the green paper clips, then the blue, then yellow, and so on and so on. We also have colored counting disks and magnetic marbles, so we can do the same activity in different ways, giving him lots of repetition of the skill in new ways.
4. Pattern and Shape Making
G is just starting to learn about patterns, so we used the magnetic marbles to make color patterns. She also enjoyed seeing what different shapes she could make with marbles.
5. Free Experimentation
Honestly, this is their favorite and the easiest activity of the bunch. I hand each kid a magnet, they choose a type or types of object, and then they are free to experiment and explore to their heart’s content. It’s really quite fun to see what they come up with, what ways they attach magnets together, how they build and create.
Since it’s summer, we are only doing the bare minimum of school work, and only because it helps G to maintain a routine, so I’m keeping it simple, and haven’t set up a whole magnet unit or any formal magnet based works. Buuuuuuut, if you are looking for a full unit, definitely check out Living Montessori Now’s set of magnet printables.