Oct. 30, 2009 - Human Body - Day 11

Digestion and taste.

We finished up our lapbook of the human body today.  We talked about how our food gets broken down in our mouth by our teeth and saliva, then goes to the stomach for further break down.  Then we followed the path through the small and large intestines and out of the body.

Large version for our wall.  And a small version for our lapbooks.

We continued our discussion of the 5 senses with taste.  We looked at our taste buds and where our tongue tastes bitter, salty, sour and sweet.

Interesting facts about digestion.

You can only see the reflection of the pencil markings, what we labeled on the tongue.  In the back is the bitter, then on the sides beginning in the middle is the sour then the salty in front of that.  The sweet is in the very front tip.

We read a scholastic book about Healthy Eating and talked about the food pyramid.  I found this food pyramid online that we printed on cardstock, put it together and filled it with a healthy snack (Honey Nut Cheerios.)

They had the back side of the last page blank and we were done with what I had planned, so I decided to have them copy the first part of Jeremiah 1:5 for the final page.  I think it summed up the entire study well.  "Before I formed you in your mother's body, I chose you.  Before you were born I set you apart to serve Me." (New International Reader's Version)

(Sorry the pictures are hard to see, pencil doesn't photgraph well with my camera.)

And finally, the cover:

I did not have a unit study planned for next week, and even though our lapbooks are done, I still have a few things from the library that we have not had a chance to look at.  So, next week we will be finishing up the study with 2 books - Living with Blindness and Living with Deafness.  I also have a DVD I checked out that talks a little about cells and genetics.  We won't watch the entire thing but will hit these 2 topics. 

So our Human Body unit study will end up being 12 days long.  We didn't go into much detail with anything.  There is so much more in Blood and Guts that they could learn.  Then next time it gets pulled out will probably be for individual study later in their studies.

Thanks for following our journey. 

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Oct. 29, 2009 - Human Body - Day 10

Hearing.  It's amazing how sounds passes through the ear canal to the eardrum to the 3 small bones to the cochlea and how our brains can translate that vibration into words or sounds.  We didn't do any experiments with hearing today, but here are the books we added to our lapbook.

Can You Hear Me Now? states amazing facts about our ears.  We read in the Usborne book what decibals different sounds are.  Then we made this accordion book showing the different parts of the ear.

I wanted to make sure we had covered all 5 senses in this study (skin-touch, eyes-sight, ears-hearing).  I didn't have anything planned for smell.  There isn't much to study about the nose except that there are smell receptors that send messages to the brain about what we smell.  I did, however, find an experiment to try about how our tastes are affected by our smell.  I cut into small pieces some potato and some apple.  The boys plugged their noses and tasted the potato.  Because the texture is about the same in both, they shouldn't have been able to tell the difference between the two.  (I tried it before they did, and I could taste the difference, but decided to let them try it anyway.)  They both made a face and exclaimed "What is this?!?"  Then I let them try the apple.  That also they could taste, but it left a better taste in their mouth.  :)

We went ahead and started the taste sense today with a study of teeth.

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Oct. 28, 2009 - Human Body - Day 9

Today was dissection day!!  If you have a weak stomach, you might want to pass on the pictures.  It wasn't as bad as I thought.  Nicolas (our gaggy one) could not watch while we were cutting, but once the piece was there to look at, he was fine.  We bought a cow's eye to dissect.  This helped us (me included!) tremendously to understand how our eyes are put together.  Still don't completely understand HOW it works, but at least we know what the inside of the eyeball really looks like.  Diagrams just can't effectively show us.  When the dissection was complete, it made it MUCH easier to fill out the diagram of the eye that we added to our lapbook.  Okay, now for the pictures.

The greyish material around the edges are the tissue and muscles.  If you look in the middle at the black X - that is the optic nerve.

So we began by cutting the tissue and muscle off from the schlera (the white of the eye.)  The coloring has changed because it's dead. :)

Next we cut the cornea from the eyeball.  This revealed the iris (the dark in the middle).  The hole in the middle of the iris is the pupil.  We were able to see that the iris can get bigger and smaller to let in more light.

The next step was cutting the eyeball in half.  This revealed a jelly like substance that fills the inside of the eye.  The left half is the front of the eye and the right is the back.  You can see the optic nerve still.

We popped the lens out.  This works as a magnifier.  We are able to see that in the word "hello" printed on a piece of paper.  You can see the 'e' and part of the 'l' is quite larger than the 'o'.  The lens was hard and like a marble, but in a live eye, it is soft.

Finally we look at the inside of the back half of the eye.  The cream colored part is the retina.  If you look at the top-right , you can see where the optic nerve comes in to the retina.  This is the only place the retina is attached to the eye.  We slid the retina down to reveal the irridescent blue.  This is what reflects light into the retina.  In animals, it is more shiny than human.  This is why animal's eyes seem to glow at night.  I have forgotton all the technical terms for these parts and am too lazy to get up and look them up.  I'm not sure we're ready for too much more dissecting at this point, but this was a fun learning experience for us.  (And it didn't smell too bad.  It had a smell, but didn't stink.)

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Oct. 27, 2009 - Human Body - Day 8

We began this week with exploring our senses.  Today was the eye.  We read in the Blood and Guts book and the Usborne Understanding your Senses book about the eye.  We did a couple of experiments. 

One was using the Usborne book to find our blind spot (which is where the optic nerve attachs to the retina.) 

Another was using a paper rolled up like a telescope and looking at it through one eye while looking at our other hand with the other eye.  As you move your hand away from your eye, you see a hole in your hand.  This is because each eye is seeing something different and our brains put the two images together.  This is why we can see in 3D as opposed to animals like a bird that do not use both eyes to look at the same object.

We looked at different diseases of the eye and simulations of each.

This one is macular degeneration.  We also saw near sightedness, what it looks like for people who need bifocals, glaucoma, and cataracts.  (These simulations I found off the internet.)

We talked briefly about the parts of the eye, but will go into greater detail when we dissect a cow's eye.  The plan is to do this tomorrow, but we may start this evening so Dad can be involved.  None of us are sure about this dissection.  They eye should be less gross than anything else.

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Oct. 26, 2009 - Lentil Co-op

We read the book Lentil by Robert McCloskey in co-op today.  The fifth graders split from the rest of the group and went on location to a building site to learn more about architecture and how a house is built.  I taught the younger children, so I can't tell you much about what they saw or talked about beyond these pictures.

The younger kids learned about Veterans' Day and wrote an acrostic poem entitled Freedom to give to a vet.  Then they explored their 5 senses at different learning stations. 

Listening station - sound bingo
Touch station - match the shape game (by reaching in a bag and finding the missing puzzle piece only by touch)
Smell station - smell and identify scents inside paper bags
Sight station - Matching game

Finally, the taste station we did together.  We used a soft candy cane to suck the lemon juice from a lemon.

Hopefully I can get pictures soon.  Since I sent my camera with the 5th graders, I will have to bum pictures from one of the other moms. ;)

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