A homemade compass

Today we finally got a chance to do the Extra Credit project from Oak Meadow that was assigned last week.

A and I made a compass!

It was actually pretty cool.

She started by magnetizing the needle by rubbing it in one direction against a magnet for several minutes.

 We then stuck the large in of the needle into a piece of wine cork and placed it in a pan of water.

Our home made compass slowly turned and then stopped when the needle was pointing North.

I asked her to draw her compass...

...but she went even further and wrote about how people navigated before compasses.

Definitely a lot of fun! So far we are loving Oak Meadow!