Homemade Compass

The homemade compass instructions in our science book includes a piece of cork. Well, cork is not a common household item at our house so that sent me on an internet search and I finally found one with items we had on hand (because I'm not one of those prepare-a-week-in-advance kinda moms).

First, I took Will outside and using the knowledge that the sun rises in the East, we figured out which was is North.

Then we made a hanging compass and compared it to a compass. It worked! YAY! (I like it so much when an experiment actually works!) The hanging needle is pointing in the N/S direction! YAY! :)

(I included the black piece of paper at the bottom of the cup so the needle could be seen easier in the picture.)