Circulatory System

I taught our co-op today and we learned about the circulatory system. Mostly we followed these PSO Lessons. When we got the stethoscopes out, we even listened to our dog's heart. We also dissected a heart (well, the 2 younger girls went to play). And, we made candy blood like we'd made back in September.

Germs & Infection

Today we continued our study of germs (or microbes) and infection. We went to Brain Pop Jr. (www.brainpopjr.com) and watched a video about why it is important to wash your hands. (It is found under Health, then Be Well, then Washing Hands.) After the video, you can take a quiz, see a cartoon, draw about it, read about it (short book list), write about it, etc. There are just lots of good ideas there! And, there are also some great ideas to try under "Ideas for Grown Ups."

Later, we played some games at the American Museum of Natural History's website. They have an area called "Infection Detection Protection." There are 7 activities there, and so far we've done 3 of them.

"Meet the Microbes" talks about the difference between viruses, bacteria, and protozoa.

"Bacteria in the Cafeteria" is a game where you click on different blue stars in the cafeteria and they tell you about different bacteria. You decide if they are helpful or not.

"Infection" was probably our favorite. You get to pick which virus you want to be. Then, you try to get past a body's defenses. You "roll" and then move your piece. It might say "You were sneezed out. Go back to Start" or "You got into the blood stream. Move ahead 4 spaces." We never got anywhere close to winning. It really shows how hard it is for germs actually to get into your body and make you sick.

We plan at looking at the other 4 items in the next couple of days.

Two good books we enjoyed:

• No Measles, No Mumps for Me by Paul Showers
• I Know How We Fight Germs by Kate Rowan - this is a "Sam's Science" book - we've never read any of these before, but Alexandra liked it so much that I've now ordered all the books are library has in this series

Cells

For the human body this week, we are continuing to look at cells. (We just didn't spend much time on it last week, and we'd gotten a new digital microscope for Christmas that we spent a lot of time with and never got it to work.)

We looked at books with pictures of cells and then we got out our microscope. We read the book Greg's Microscope and then tried to follow his experiments (looking at salt, sugar, cheek cells, etc). We actually didn't see a lot except the salt and the sugar. The light on our microscope isn't working very well. I hope to get our digital microscope replaced quickly and maybe we'll be able to see a lot more with it!

Anyway, we still had fun and plan on looking at some other things under the microscope, too. We had some prepared slides that probably have cells - I'll have to go back through them and look.

Either tomorrow or next week, we'll move to our next topic - germs!

Dissecting an Eyeball

(Alexandra holding the un-dissected eyeball)

This week, we went to some friends house to have a lesson related to Benjamin Franklin. Since one of the girls has wanted to dissect something with me, I decided to concentrate on Franklin's invention of the bifocals and how he needed to understand something about lenses and the eye.

Basically, we talked about how lenses bend light and then used a drop of water on Syran wrap to magnify an ad. After that, we went straight to dissecting the cow's eye.

We watched each step on http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cow_eye/ and then completed that step ourselves. It was so much fun! I hadn't dissected anything in years, and I wasn't sure how well I would handle it. But, it turned out to be fine. (Although I would like sharper scissors.) And, the other girls and the mom didn't want to touch it at first, but by the end, they were all touching it and really enjoying it!

( Alexandra is holding the lens. This was her FAVORITE part. We even saved it! I ended up chopping it in half to show a cross-section, and she cried! We are going to get another eyeball so she can save the lens!)

They want to do some more "classes" togehter and do another dissection soon. I think we'll do the sheep's heart in the next few weeks, as I already have it. We'll probably mix up another batch of "candy blood", too.

Books we enjoyed:

• Sight (A True Book) by Murphy - great book
• Buddy: The First Seeing Eye Dog by Eva Moore - we really enjoyed this true story
• The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses - great diagrams, fun story, and informational "reports"

Sound, the Ear, and the Armonica

With the Ben Franklin exhibit in town, we got together with some friends this week to talk about his invention of the armonica. My friend was in charge of teaching, and she did a neat job of talking about sound, the ear, and the armonica.

First she talked about sound waves and demonstrated them. Then, she discussed a model of an ear and showed a book with photos of the parts of an ear. After that, the children got to go through a kid-size model of the ear - complete with ear canal, ear drum, "small" bones, and the auditory nerve. They loved this!!! The 3 girls asked to do it over and over again.

After this, we went on to listen to music played on crystal glasses brought to us by the internet. Then, she got out her crystal glasses and the girls learned to play them! It was a lot of fun, and I know the girls learned a lot. Thank you, Ms. S!!!

(My camera no longer takes good pictures indoors, so I really didn't get but a few, poor photos!)

Good book: The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses - great diagrams, fun story, and informational "reports"

Blood

We've also been studying about blood this week. I got interested in this when we went to our medical museum and Alexandra got to play in a tent of "red blood cells" which were really red balls.

We made one of the neatest models I've ever read about for our study about blood. We made "blood" out of candy. I found the directions on several websites.

Here are the ingredients:

• red hots - red blood cells
• mini-marshmallows (or white jelly beans) - white blood cells
• corn syrup - plasma
• sprinkles - platelets

As we added the various ingredients, we talked about what fraction of blood each part really makes up (RBCs and plasma each make up "about half" and there are very few WBCs and platelets). And, we talked about the function of each part. Afterwards, Alexandra was the teacher and taught me. I even heard her on the phone tonight explaining it to her Nana and Papa. What a great lesson that I think we'll both remember for a long time! (sorry for the blurry picture!)
Great video: Human Body for Children: All About Blood and the Heart (Schlessinger)
Books we enjoyed:

• Magic School Bus: Inside Ralphie - A Book About Germs
• A Drop of Blood by Showers - WONDERFUL!!!
• Circulatory System by Frost - very easy, short book, but still good
• The Circulatory System (A True Book) by Stille - great series!
• Hear Your Heart by Showers -
• Ouch! A Book About Cuts, Scratches, and Scrapes by Melvin Berger - good book about cuts & how they heal

Blood

Last week, we went to our medical sciences museum. They have a temporary exhibit that we hadn't seen yet called "Nanoworld." It has a lot of hands on activities dealing with things that are microscopic - including blood. One of Alexandra's favorite activities was playing in a "drop of blood." It was actually a red tent full of red balls. Hidden within the red balls was a white loofah. (sp?) It was, of course, a "white blood cell" amidst all of the red blood cells. (There were actually supposed to be several, but we only found 1.) This activity was supposed to show how in a drop of blood are lots & lots of RBC's, but comparatively very few WBC's. The kids enjoyed taking turns hiding the WBC & then searching for it.

Today, we got a very cute, scientific book from the library. It's called A Drop of Blood by Paul Showers. We also read Me and My Amazing Body by Joan Sweeney, a great author.