Compass Work

Today we started learning about compasses and direction by making a water compass. This is a great project and gets the children excited about compasses right from the get go. Most of our compass boats pointed North but a couple (as always) pointed South. We can never figure out why this happens. It must have something to do with the way the children magnetize their needle but whatever the reason it always makes a good discussion point :)

               
                                                     Here's one of our finished boats!

We followed up our experiment by going outside with compasses and navigating our way around the field. Later this week we'll have a treasure hunt and see how much the children remember. They'll have to use their compass to find the treasure somewhere in the school. :)