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Reprinted by permission of Dick Berg, University of Maryland, for use on this website.

The demonstrations contained and referenced herein are listed for the purposes of cataloging and describing physics demonstrations which should be conducted only under the direction of a trained instructional support professional or physicist. These demonstrations are not presented for the purpose of being conducted by persons unconnected to this Facility and/or persons not consulting with or being supervised by the recognized instructional support professional or physicist and his/her staff. The University is responsible only for those demonstrations carried out using its own equipment using established safety and scheduling policies, and bears no responsibility for those choosing to use this source material for their own purposes. All demonstrations described and contained herein are public domain, and can also be found in reference materials in libraries, bookstores, and electronic sources.

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Vermiculite is good to use if you really want things to jump around.  Put a handful into a watch glass and wave either of the charged wands over it.  The vermiculite will first jump up to the charged wand. Once the vermiculite particles have touched the wand they will be repelled from the wand.  So basically the particles will jump onto and then off of the wand with only a few actually sticking to the wand.  

Break up some Styrofoam peanuts.  Charge the Lucite rod with the silk and wave over the peanuts.  The peanuts will jump to the Lucite rod, even when the rod is held up to 6 inches above the peanuts.