Machines Week - Electrics

This week we are having out first project week. R has been asking how things work all the time lately so we are going to study machines for a whole week. We're going to do lots of hands on investigating and experimenting. This morning we began with simple electrics.

First we started with a book about electricity and how it reaches the house. The book was American so there were a few differences compared to Australia but the basics are the same.

Once we had learnt about how the electricity enters the home we went outside to have a look at our electric meter and fuse box. Next we looked around for appliances that are wired in (like our oven and air con) and those with on/off switches like the kettle.

Next we talked about portable electricity and batteries. We decided to investigate and take apart some torches.

L takes a bike light apart

Throughout our initial investigations we had been talking about circuits so we made some of our own.

We talked about completing a circuit to make the bulb light.  Next we made a game where the object was to pass a loop over a wire without touching it and making the bulb light. It was pretty tricky.

Next we considered what materials would and wouldn't conduct electricity and we tested some of them to find out.

A coin completes the circuit

Wood does not conduct electricity

A paper clip completes the circuit

We finished off by doing some more electrical experiments with our Heebie Jeebies electronics kit.

The children loved the morning full of experiments and talked about what they had learnt later in the day.