Biology 101

Monday, April 28, 2008

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Kayla is a 9th grader this year --- my first HIGH SCHOOLER!  Phew!  God has been faithful to bring us through another year of school - and this one had some twists and turns!  He keeps on showing me how great he is and how small I am!

We are using Apologia for Science and Kayla took Biology this year.  It has been a great course and she has done very well.  I was nervous about "teaching" a Biology course but it has been great.  A couple of chapters were challenging because of all the unfamiliar terms but she made it through!   At one point, she took some photos of an experiment and e-mailed them to Dr. Wile with a question - and he responded!  How cool is that?  To have the author of the curriculum e-mail you?  He answered her questions and encouraged her in her studies.

CAUTION ~~~~~~ Dissection photo's ahead ~~~~~

Another part of Biology are those often dreaded dissections!  Early in the year I arranged with 2 other homeschool moms to have our dissections labs together.  We are finished now and it couldn't have turned out better - it was such a blessing.   We met at our house and  the girls dissected 5 different specimens  - on five separate days.  Each dissection took about 2 hours but that included watching the dissection on DVD first. ( I highly recommend watching them before hand if possible - the DVD we used came from ABEKA. )   Two girls did the actual cutting (for lack of better word) and Kayla read the instructions, did a few drawings and took notes for everyone.  She also took tons of photos....

Here's the perch -

The frog - they got a kick out of it's tongue ...

One of the specimens was a female and loaded with black eggs - the eggs just literally fill up the body cavity and it was quite gross. (I'm sparing you all the photo's).  The other specimen was a male and when it was open our friend noticed it had a very large stomach and proceeded to cut it open and examine the contents.   Ick, Ick - we're guestimating about 8 different insects (some whole and some partial) were inside.  Yucko.  (we have pictures of that too and you can view those at Kayla's blog)

They even dissected a starfish and all agreed it was the most disgusting for it's texture and very peculiar insides.

I'm not posting a picture of the worms but what was interesting about the worm is that he has earth/dirt inside it's body.

Lastly,  they dissected a couple of crayfish (or what y'all might call 'crawdads'!) which were like mini lobsters and we thought the gills were pretty cool as they are attached to it's legs.

I never did dissections in school so this was quite an experience for all of us but I'm so glad we did it and if we can do it -- so can you!!

Untitled Comment

Noted by earlyriser430 on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 9:29 AM Link

I love Apologia Science! That's wonderful that your daughter was able to email questions out and they actually were answered :) Yeah! Great pics -- looks like a fun (wink!) time! I saw the pic of your daughters charcoal drawing ~ wow! amazing! Congrats to her on her ribbon!! Looks like you are doing real well * I'm happy for ya! Have a great Friday * EMichelle

Mother's Day GiveAway!

Noted by SchoolinRhome on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 1:40 PM Link

What amazing and kind of groos photos!
I wanted to let you know that I am hosting my first giveaway over at my blog! It is to celebrate Mother's Day! Stop by and tell me why you are happy to be a mother and you could win an awesome devotional book, a journal and a cooking with kids CD-Rom.
Enjoy your weekend with your family!
SchoolinRhome
Here is the giveaway link:
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SchoolinRhome/525838/