Science fun: focusing the sun

We are learning about the solar system in our co-op class. This past week our topic was the sun, and each week we'll focus on a different planet for the rest of the semester. One of the projects from the Apologia Elementary Astronomy book is focusing sunlight with a magnifying glass onto a leaf to burn a hole in it. This was an object lesson to prove a point about why it's important we don't look at the sun because our eyes work the same way. My class full of boys LOVED this, and they could have done it all day, I'm sure. I had to drag them away when it was time to go back inside to paint our suns.

We were pretty successful with our leaf burns. Some of the boys had said they've never been successful at doing this, so it made me happy to see all of them burn at least one hole. Most of them several.

 The regular magnifying glass worked pretty good...

 But, the best and most surprising tool was this magnifying sheet from the dollar store. I stopped on the way to class hoping to find some regular magnifying glasses. They didn't have any magnifying glasses of the traditional style, but they did have this magnifying sheet. I just grabbed one thinking there was no way it would really work, but was curious to try anyway.

It turns out the sheet was the best, most effective at getting the sun to focus on the leaf. This became the favorite tool among the boys, and we had to take turns.

In case you are wondering what it looks like...

So, if you're planning to do some science fun with leaves and burning holes this is the best tool! A magnifying sheet from the dollar tree. Be cautious, this does get very hot, and supervise your children when they are doing this science experiment!