• Mar. 4, 2008
Theres No Brain about it..

Ok ok , if you have heard this faze before its
actually Theres no bones about it but for my entry today
it's all about BRAINS...

Awhile ago our Co-op attended a field trip to
a neuro Science lab. We had such a great time
that when it came time to teach a class I decided
to teach about the Nervous system. If you want
to see the lab and a real human brain check out
the link in my categories section and click Science.
Half way down the page you'll find the Science lab
entry. Its worth a peek I have actual photos of a
real human brain.

And so began our journey of the brain . The lesson
I created were for children 8 years and up. Enjoy.

We created a brain notebook. This is the cover.
My photo doesnt do it justice. It was clear.
I am not sure what happens to them sometimes
from pc to blogger but oh well. The
Cover and many of the sheets I used are in
my file share folder. The link for that is also on
My side bar. I used clipart from Micrsoft.
Thats my favorite place to get clip art. It downloads
directly to my microsoft programs.

DAY1

-We talked about our bodies as God
would want us to take care of them. What a wonderful
complicated Gift God has provided us. (wkst. in file share)

-Learned about the 3 main parts of the nervous system and
labeled a body from an outline. Brain, spinal cord, nerves

-In voluntary and Voluntary reactions of nerves. Played
a game using charades to guess which reaction was
being acted out and then choosing the correct category.
(wkst in file share)

-Talked about the 5 senses and how they are
connected to the nervous system. We zoned in
on one the sense of taste and did a taste
testing experiment. I had four samples salt,
sugar, vinegar, and grapefruit juice. We used a
q-tip and dipped it into the solutions mixed with
a bit of water and tried to find where that
taste on our tongue was most prominate.
We labeled a tongue where we tasted these things.

- Lastly for that day I brought in live earth worms
and we tested what their reactions was to different
things. Their how their nervous system works.
We shined a flash light at them, yelled loud,
left them smell nail polish remover and vinegar.
They actually liked the vinegar. We came to
the conclusion that they probably liked it because it
was natural.

DAY 2

-We talked about the nerves and the Neurons
and went over the functions of the Neurons.

-We did a worksheet from this site. Brain worksheets
We also created a Neuron from pipe cleaners and labeled them
from this site. Nervous system models

  DAY 3

- made a brain from salt flour dough.

-learned about the 4 Lobes of the brain .
Labeled and painted them onto our dough creation.
The dough creation was actually started on the 2nd day.

- Brain connection game  - I labeled on paper brain,
spine, right leg, left leg, right arm , left arm, eyes, nose, mouth,
etc.. Then had each child stand and create the illusion of a person.
I then gave them activies such as scratching their right arm. The brain
would touch the spinal cord then the right arm . To show how the
direction is processed. The kids had a great time with this one.

-learned Facts on the brain

-Talked about hour delicate our brain is and the
covering. Talked about wearing bike helmets.
I brought and egg in and told them it was representing
our brains. I dropped the egg. Then the children
created helmets for the egg so when it fell
It would not be harmed. I gave them paper towels,
cotton balls, tape, tissue anything soft.

-After dropping it onto some newspaper we opened them
over a trash can to see if they had broken.
Princess stayed whole.


Day 4 (last day)

-finished up on the brain and its parts

- did an experiment to try to trick our brains.
One was writing a word in a different color and
then trying to look at the word and only say the color
Of the word. We found this trickier than the actually
reading the words.

- We reviewed reflexes and the children
dropped rulers and measured how quick their
reaction time was.

-We made a matching game with
all the terms of the brain on them. We wrote
the term on one card and the definition on the
other. Then played as if you were playing matching.
You lay all the cards face down. Then pick two at
a time looking for their match. Good way to become
familiar with terms. I allowed them to have their notes.

-To see and review what we learned I
had questions written up . The boys played against
the girls and we saw how fast they could answer
the review questions.


It was a lot of fun to create and I think the kids enjoyed it too.

Other links I used...

NeuroScience for Kids

Brain Facts

Gods Master piece

Kids Konnect Human body

Nervous system

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• Jan. 9, 2008
Sea World

Posted in Science

I found this wonderful link at
sea world for teachers. I used
the one downloadable book with my
Penguin lapbook. I was looking
though and thought that someone
may be interested in some of the other
free books available.
Sea World

Here are the ebooks that are available for free.
These are all in Pdf Form. Really good. I highly
recommend them.

Animal behaviour in training
Whales
Seals,Sea Lions and Walruses
Artic Animals
Endangered species
Marine animal husbandry and training
Ocean Discovery
Penguins
Saving the wild
Sharks
splash of math
Whales

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• Dec. 11, 2007
Air Pressure and Busy day

Posted in Science

Today has been such a busy day!
"Princess" at one point said "Mom take
It one step at a time." lol
Where do you think she heard that one?

Speaking of pressure...

Today was Science Day. I have to say I really
dislike Science and yet it is "Princess" favorite
subject. Today we talked about pressure.
How the molecules of of water are closer together
than the molecules of air. Each are flowing and
a fluid.  Which would create more pressure?
Hmm probaby the pressure in my head. lol

We put water inside of a can. Heated the can in
a very old kettle. Left it boil for a minute.
Then filpped it over into cold water. What happens?

I dont have photo we got a little excited lol
but I'll tell you the can crunches inward.
That is pressure.

Then we made a barameter that we will
read daily. Take an old Soda bottle.
Mark your staw every centimeter. Fill you bottle
with colored water about 1/3 full. Put the
straw just under the water and secure with clay.
Then use a dropper and fill the straw about half way.
Make where the water sits and check
Your readings every day.

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• Oct. 24, 2007
Science FUN!!!

Posted in Science

We have been having so much fun exploring Science. Let me show you our latest two projects.

"Princess" is working on Chemistry and solutions. We are working on a lapbook which I will show you after its completed. This week we worked on Solvents and Solutes.

Solvents- are substances that disolve another substance
Solute- are the substances being disolved.

In the text we were reading it says usually Water is a solvent. 
Using the water as our variable trying to disolve baking soda, salt and sugar.

We tried disolving each in rubbing alcohol, vinegar ,cooking oil, and soapy water. We also learned how to write out these solutions putting the solute first then the solvent on our labels. (if they mixed)  Below is our result from the baking soda vinegar. Course most of you knew that would happen. :) Although there was a lot of reaction this was not considered a mixed solution.

Our results were that the only things that disolved were the soapy water mixture Probably because it was mostly "water"


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"Super Boy " Is working on Gravity and Friction. So much fun I must say. We talked about how the first space shuttles used to land. How the friction of the ship against the air would create heat. We also talked about how they could slow down. We decided that a larger area would slow things up. So we tested our theory.


We created 3 parachutes each measuring slightly different than the first.
One was 20x 20 cm. then 15, then 10 cm. We cut a large gallon ziplock bag for the parachute. We tied string about 20 cm in length to each corner of the baggies then gave them a little weight with a quater and taping it to the yarn. Then we left them go. Our findings were correct the large area chute came down much slower than the smaller one that seem to drop right to the floor.

 

--------------------------------------------

We also had a brief discussion on Friction and boats. The boat against the water. A sail against the wind.  We made some aluminum foil boats and floated them in an out tin pan I had. Baby played with this nicely while I made supper.

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• Sep. 29, 2007
Neuroscience Lab field trip (Show and Tell)

Posted in Science

Welcome to show and tell Friday .. Ok a day late. :)
Show and tell meme can be found at this site.
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/canadagirl

Yesterday we had a very full day. We headed out to Gettysburg college to visit
a Neuroscience lab. It was about an hour and a half drive but definately worth it. Are you ready for your tour. Hang on to your seats. Lets go. ...


Welcome to the Science lab of Neurology. Which is the study of....


The brain and yes that is a real human brain on that pan.
The scientist told us all about the different parts of a brain.
The Cerebellum makes up the biggest part of the brain. This is your thinking part. The one that helps you to reason and make decisions. The very front part of your brain tells you to stop doing something when you are about to do something wrong. Interestingly enough this part of the brain is not attached to the rest of the brain in children. The back pan has a brain with the thin protective covering still on it. This covering is very thin. This is why you are to wear you bike helmets. The human brain has many creases in it. This is because humans try to hold more information then their brain can handle. The brain then colapses into itself. Strange huh!!


The children were allowed to put rubber gloves on and touch the brain. This particular one is about 30 years old which makes it toxic. If you were to touch a brain new it would feel like oatmeal. Where this brain is harder because of age.

This particular lab studies the affects of anxiety , adhd and add in children. There is very little study on these things. There have studies of the affects of the drugs they use on adults but not on children. They dont actually use children though for their studies. Since rats have been here on earth as long as humans have they use rats for the studies. In the past adult rats have been used for the  studies but the same results didn't apply to children. So they have to study young rats.
These are the bins the Rats are kept in.


What they do then is scare the rats to measure their anxiety levels. How do they do that? With a cat of course. Another scientist is trying to figure out what it is about the cats smell that scares the rats. Since the cats aren't actually present.
They then  try to modify this behavior of being so afraid.

They also study the behaviors of baby rats and their mothers. They have learned that they have to take the rats from their moms for 15 mins per day or the rats dont nurture their babies. This 15 minutes is to emulate the moms going out in the wild in search of food. They have also found that the babies that were nurtured by their moms were less afraid and had less anxiety around the cat smell then the rat whose mom didnt nurture them. (interesting huh)


Lab rats. ..

So that concudes our visit to the lab.. One last shot of "Princess" Standing in the hall. Neat view I thought of the parking lot. lol Since Science is her favorite subject this trip was a hit. I know she doesnt look very  happy but you know how kids love photos. :)

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• Mar. 3, 2007
Weather Vane

Posted in Science

       As you all know or should if you have been reading my blog . :) We have been working on a weather unit. Each day we have been creating a new weather tool in helping us perdict the weather.  Yesterday we talked about thunderstorms . We created this weather vane above. We used a compass to help us with the directionals and put those on the top of the paper plate. N, S, E, W. We then put a hole in the center of the plate. We got a second plate and sat it as if we were going to eat and put a big ball of clay in the center of it. We put small rocks around the clay as support. Then we took a new pencil and put it into the hole and into the clay eraser side up. You cut two slits in each side of your straw and add a tail and a triangle for a point. Slide the paper into the slit. Then use a straight pin and push it through the eraser and the staw. Voila a weather vane.  We also made a tornado tube.. We used a small clear soda bottle. Filled it about half way with water. Add a teaspoon of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of clear dish soap. We the added beads and sequins. Turn the bottle upside down and shake in a circular manor. You should be able to see the vortex. Its really neat.  With March on the way I just think we have to make a kite too. I know I know the usual weather stuff in March but I couldnt help myself. :)

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• Feb. 22, 2007
Science

Posted in Science

Science Weather unit What we are doing?

Brett is still working on his weather unit. We have begun creating his lapbook. In the inside I have a weather log. Brett has been checking his weather daily. We will be adding some weather instruments as we go and putting more data onto our weather sheets. The other day we talked about the seasons and talked about why the temp. is different during each of our seasons. How the earth rotates around the sun and how it spins on its axis. Very good lesson. The we added some season pitures to the front of our lapbook. We also created a season wheel that we cut into triangles and will be adding that to our book as well. The really neat thing is that we are working on weather in our Co-op so he will be getting next time the severe weather information and maybe we can add some of it to our lapbook.


My thoughts on Science

If you are not yet working on any Science as of yet. I would highly recommend that you start. You will find that there are so many topics out there once you get started. It seems to me that we start a topic and it kind of morphs to another topic. My children enjoy working on lapbooks for the science sessions and my older child does notebooking. We like to incorporate a lot of hands on experiments. I know many that don't like this hands on appoach but the kids just love it. If you are having trouble finding topics below is what we are working on this year.

Brett Science (1st grade)
Acting like a scientist- How to observe, record data and use different scientific tools such as balance, thermometer, scale etc..
Matter and the states matter, solid, liquid, gas (those experiments were fun by the way)
weather
animal classification
How animals adapt
Light, shadows
Seeds and plants
habitats forest, dessart, polar etc..
Oceans and undersea life
human body

Saras Science Grade 4

Ecosystems
Plant and animal interactions
Chemistry and solutions
forces in fluids
Human body
classifications in invertebrates
Electricity and magnatism
Rocks and minerals
weathering erosion and deposition
Fossils

As you can see our lists have grown and some we may or may not get to this year we will see. Depending how deep the kids end up going. Sara does her Science over the summer months because she enjoys it so much and we can explore it better. The same with music. We work on a light schedule but continue to work.

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• Jan. 25, 2007
Homeschooling Tip Weather

Posted in Science

My Homeschooling idea for today is the weather unit I have planned for Co-op in Feb. It needs a little fine tuning but all in all I think it will do. Here is what we are doing.

Weather

Possible books to read Eric Carls Little cloud
or Rainy with a chance of meatballs Or what ever looks good at the library.

Write weather words on sentence strips that kids come up with.
Go over them at the end as well.

Station 1 Thermometer
Work on reading a thermometer. Younger children knowing hot has more red and colder has less. Do an experiment with ice and warm it with their hands. Play thermometer game with a play thermometer and show where the red would go with different senerios/picture cards. (Does anyone know where I might find this. If not I will use magazines.)

Station 2 Snow
Information on snowflakes and create and  decorate. I want to also check hands of a child they have a free ebook on snow there might be something I can use in there. http://www.handsofachild.com/2/freebies/

Station 3 Forecasting
Try to forcast the next few days and then play a math Rainbow game with skittles. Older children adding skittles, younger putting numbers onto rainbows. So the rainbow will be laminated and then they will have math fact sheets. They have to add or subtract and put that many skittles on them. For younger it will just be a number.

Cloudy together
Cloud sheet with differnt clouds on try to imitate them with a pile of shaving cream and play in it with their hands.
Some great worksheets here http://www.wildwildweather.com/clouds.htm

If you have any other ideas to add please post them. I would be glad to hear them.

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