Does a magnet stick to every kind of metal?

Have you ever pressed a little magnet onto the fridge door? Click! It holds on tight. You can feel it tug right out of your fingers.

The fridge door is made of metal. Kitchen foil and a gold ring are metal too. So does a magnet stick to every kind of metal? Let's find out together.

A magnet can pull some things toward it. It does not need hands or glue. It reaches out with an invisible pull and draws them close.

A magnet pulls on iron, which is a strong gray metal. Under its paint, the fridge door has lots of iron. So the magnet pulls the door and holds on.

Paper clips are made with iron too. Hold a magnet near them, and up they jump. They hang from the magnet in a wiggly little chain.

Now let's look at kitchen foil. Foil is a thin, shiny metal too. Will a magnet stick to foil? What do you think?

No, the magnet slides right off! Foil has no iron inside it. So the magnet has nothing to pull, and it drops away.

A gold ring is the same. Gold is a lovely metal, but it has no iron. The magnet does not pull the ring at all. It just slips off and lies still beside it.

Our special word today was iron. The fridge door and paper clips have iron. Kitchen foil and a gold ring do not. A magnet pulls on iron, so it sticks only to metal with iron inside.

Sleep well, explorer, and dream of tiny magnets clicking softly onto the fridge.