• Magnet
• Various metal items like ball bearings, springs & screws
• Various non-metal items like marbles
• Paper
• Plastic tray or box
• Tempera paint
• Cups or palette to dip the metal pieces in
• Spoons to get the painted covered pieces into the tray

To begin painting, pour your paint into something deep enough to drop your metal pieces into.   An egg carton works well too.  Then cut your paper to fit your tray and place a piece inside. Now it’s time to paint!  Dip a metal piece in paint and drop it into the tray.  Then take the magnet and move it around under the plastic tray as this keeps the metal pieces rolling smoothly.

One of the best parts of this project is that kids can learn a little science while painting.  You can use all metal pieces or you can throw in some things that the magnet can’t move like glass marbles.  Even the all the metal pieces moved differently.  Some were too heavy and some like the metal bead chain stopped moving when they got covered in paint.  Our favorite were the springs because they rolled around and left cool stripes.