Magnetism isn’t an important topic for the Primary School Leaving Exam. Or rather, it is often combined with electricity. More often than not, a question on electromagnetism will appear on the paper.

That didn’t stop me from asking my colleague to lend me this book for the holidays. It seems that Primary 2 students study “Magnetic Max” as a STELLAR unit.

Yes, I took this book all the way to Japan and read it with the son twice (and probably counting).

I love the narrative structure. The premise is very easy to follow even for a preschooler. Max hid up in a tree and held an enormous magnet. Three of his friends walked past and had their items flying up to the tree: keys, paper clips, and iron bolts on a skateboard. Ann-Marie Parker employed the rule of three very well. I’m certain that my son remembers that iron and steel are magnetic because of my repetition of concepts that organically happened during the reading aloud.

I am not having such luck with the spelling of iron and steel though. I think he still doesn’t know how to spell these words yet. I need to find out the uses of nickel and cobalt. I just vaguely remember the colour changes of their precipitate from my Chemistry days.

I definitely need to brush up on my knowledge on the uses of magnets in daily life so that I can bombard his consciousness whenever possible. Right now, he only knows that (quartz) watches contain magnets because I took the initiative to educate him haha.

Also, due to the influence of this book, I have bought several magnetic items this trip, including these animal tiles. I felt an exhilarating sense of naches when the son placed one such tile on the door handle. Apparently, it was magnetic! Glad that he knew how to put the things he had learnt into practice - definitely worth more than the ¥110 I paid for the tiles.