Static Electricity Experiments Help Kids

Hi, today this blog is going to look at one of the static electricity experiments that I have used as an aid in teaching children about science. We all know that children struggle with certain subjects and maths and science both seem to be top of this list. By introducing a little homeschooling you can use static electricity experiments as part of your learning process to make life a little easier on the youngsters.

By teaching youngsters at home you can give them that little edge or advantage in school that they will need to succeed. For this experiment you will need a pair of scissors, a styrofoam tray, a reel of masking tape and a pie tin made out of aluminum. Once all these are collected you are ready to commence with a simple static electricity experiments.

Cut a piece off one corner of the Styrofoam tray, as the picture shows. You'll have a long bent piece that looks a little like a hockey stick. If you use the masking tape to tape the bent piece to the tin it will act as some sort of handle. Pick up the styrofoam tray and rub it really vigorously over your head and then put the tray upside down on a table. Grab the pie tin by the handle that you constructed and hold it over the styrofoam tray and then drop it.

Next is the tricky bit - very lightly touch the pie tin with the tip of one of your fingers. Do not touch the styrofoam tray otherwise this static electricity experiments will not work. When you touch the pie tray you will see a really cool spark shoot out towards your finger. If you then pick up the pie tin by the handle and lightly touch it you will also get another cool spark of lightening - then drop it onto the styrofoam and start all over again.

This is one of the static electricity experiments that you can do over and over again with great results. If the sparks stop simply rub the styrofoam tray over your head again. To keep the kids interested you should try doing the experiment in the dark. The little lightening bolts will look really cool under dark light and will amaze the kids. This is just a short blog covering one of the many static electricity experiments and science activities we have for kids on our parent site. If you are interested in visiting this site then simply click one of the text links in this article.