EYFS Activities: Let's go to… the Discovery Museum

Today, we will be talking about magnetic ‘superpowers’, how objects are made from different materials and how this links to the museum's engineering collections. I use Makaton during sessions and activities are flexible, they can be moved to floor, table or lap-tray for accessibility. During group time there are floor, chair or sofa seating options. The sessions are informal and children can move around.

ACTIVITIES

We begin with five to ten minutes of introductory activities set up at floor level. Today's activities include:

After the welcome session, each child is given a giant magnet and together we investigate a selection of objects to see which ones attract the magnet. Items include a metal padlock, an old key, plastic building block, wooden lollipop stick, cymbals, plastic ball and a toy car. We discover that magnets only pick up metal. One of my favourite moments is when four children work together to pick up a large, old chunky padlock with their four giant magnets. I praise the teamwork and ask them why they needed all four magnets. A child tells me that the lock was too heavy for their magnet alone and they needed more magnet power.