Home made compass

The sand from yesterday has led us on to magnets today! I asked how Sam would get iron filings out of sand. Obviously we then had to play with magnets. I didn't have any iron fillings so we didn't get to test his theory but I have assured him that he was right and that magnets could be used to separate iron from other materials.
We also have some nanodot magnets (little agnetic ball bearing) that are fun to play with. We looked at attraction and repulsion and eventually made the compass in the photo above.