My daughter is taking 9th grade biology.  That means dissections!  I ordered everything last summer.  Since we are moving to Virginia, I considered the options with these preserved creatures.  My daughter is not yet at the part of the science course to do the dissections.  Technically they should be done later.  But I did not want to pack them in our car.  Nor did I want to have the movers deal with them.  Sometimes things get damaged.  What would I write on the insurance claim?  "Damaged...4 dead animals."  Or what if they got lost.  "Lost...4 dead animals." What would the insurance company think?  No, we had to do them now!  Additionally, my sister-in-law, who is a veternarian, loves to do dissections and had originally agreed to do them with the kids.  So today after our Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trip, we packed up the van with the dead creatures, and drove to her house.  (I explained to her they couldn't be done at my house because the appraiser could be coming through.  What in the world would he think?)

     My nephews were down for naps, so we got down to work. The plan was that she'd work with them and I'd take pictures.  Later, when my daughter actually needs to do the labs, she can do her drawings based on my digital pictures.  Also, she can use the zoom feature in the digital imaging program and look at any body parts up close for extra detail.  My SIL was impressed with this, saying that is how labs are being taught these days at colleges. 

     I was elated to have my SIL do this because I do not like to dissect animals.  Instead I got to sit back, take pictures, draw a picture of a fish for my 2 1/2 year old nephew, and cuddle with my baby nephew and give him his bottle!  I don't know when I'll get to see them again so I had to soak this up!

     My SIL was dubious that we'd get all 4 dissections done, but I was a woman on a mission.  My son really got into the dissections and would probably still be there exploring if given the choice.  However I made sure we got all 4 done before we had to leave. 

     Dissection number one was an earthworm.  I made sure not only my son, but also my daughter, got the opportunity to run their fingers up and down the earthworm to feel the setea, which it used to pull itself around.  The kids wanted me to feel for them, but nope.  I would not want to take away from their time to get the dissections done. (Besides I had done this in high school and college labs and it was my least favorite part of all the dissections I've ever done.) 

Dissection number two was the crayfish.  

Here are the gills...

And here is the rest.  They were able to figure out that it was a male.

Dissection number three was a perch.  My son was really excited to do this, because he loves fish.  It would have been great if I had my video on, because this was the fish that got away!  While my son was cutting into him, it flew out of his hands, flipped in the air and landed on the floor.   Alas there are neither videos nor pictures of this creature.  My son had a really hard time opening him up, then once we started taking a look around, nothing matched the pictures in the biology book.  We did figure out (we think) what the air bladder was and that was pretty cool.  Oh, we did have a good time inspecting the differences in the fins and looking at the gills.  Since we were  clueless about the rest of it, we simply explored the insides.  We decided this one was a dud.  My son tried to get into the brain, but it had a hard head.  I finally told him we had to move on to the frog, that should be a lot better and more productive. 

     Dissection number four was the frog.  We had no directions at all for this one.  The lab expected the kids to have enough experience under their belts to do a little on-line research to learn what they should expect to see.  Hmmmm....didn't have time for that.  So we just dug in.  My SIL and I remembered how to cut one open from our high school and college labs.  Upon first viewing, it looked like this...

Then I told them to just explore.  SIL really got into this (so did my son) and she was able to figure almost everything out.  We never would have come to the same conclusions she did.  Her explanations were extremely logical and taught us a lot about doing future dissections (future dissections?  ugh) Because this anatomy is a little more similar to a mammal, and she works with dogs and cats, she was able to draw from what she knew of dogs and cats and apply that to the frog.  For example, she figured out which organ was the heart, because it felt like a muscle.  She figured out the liver because the gall bladder was obvious.  The lungs made sense after finding two of them...deflated.  

We think this was a female because we think these are the eggs that were pulled out.  SIL and I thought they looked a little like caviar...not that we've ever eaten any.  (Please don't offer us any.  We agreed that is one delicacy we could easily pass up, especially after this experience.)

In the end, my daughter, who was dreading this opportunity, figured it wasn't so bad after all.  My son obviously had a blast because he does not have to do this for a couple of more years. I had to make sure he gave his sister equal opportunity.   My four month old nephew would not let me sit while I gave him his bottle. I had to stand so he could see everything.  He kept leaning closer and closer to the dissection.  It was not easy feeding him while he strained to watch every detail.  My 2 1/2 year old nephew did not want to touch the fish at first.  Finally he touched it and then he thought that was disgusting.  He really liked my daughter's biology book.  He had a lot of fun pointing out plants and animals.   My SIL felt like she didn't do enough, especially because she had to tend to her sons quite a bit.  Actually I think she did a wonderful job!  The kids got far more constructive direction from her than they ever could have from me.  My strengths are in other areas, but not dissections.  I am thrilled that I don't have to tote these things to Virginia.   

     We have been working soooooooooooooo hard on this house to sell it and prepare for our move to Virginia, that we had to finally take a break and let off some steam!  Last summer I had gotten season passes to the Witte Museum.  They have a major exhibit that changes out three times a year.  Last summer we got to experience Leonardo da Vinci's machines.  Last autumn we immersed ourselves in bluebonnets and found Lafayette.  Now we got to delve into DNA.

     This was terrific timing since the kids have recently studied DNA in their science curriculum.  A lot of it was review, yet a wonderful opportunity to cement the concepts into their minds.

They got to see how DNA is normally spiraled...

They reviewed how adenine and thymine pair up, whereas guanine and cytosine make a match.

If one actually listened, there was a voice over that explained the DNA model.

Here they got to race the clock to make all the matches of A's to T's and C's to G's themselves...

Ta Da!

     There were lots of interesting displays that I never got pictures of.  There was a cool model of the cell where the kids got to move a camera over the different parts to see video and explanation of the different parts, like the endoplasmic reticulum (don't you love that word?), golgi bodies, nucleus, etc.  It was a great review for my daughter and introduction for my son. 

     I don't remember much else.  I was exhausted.  I hadn't slept much in months, worrying whether my husband would get a job. Then when he got it, we worked long days to get things spit spot to sell the house and to get rid of extras in preparation for the move.  After I saw all the displays, I decided to go sit on the nice comfortable padded bench against the wall and simply be quiet and relax.  Ahhhhhh.....it was so comfortable, I fell asleep!  When I woke up, the kids wanted me to do this machine.  This was easy.  It was merely matching up adenine and thymine and cytosine to guanine pairs for a code.  However I was so tired I wasn't quite comprehending what the code was and the kids weren't making much sense!  But they were impressed I was able to rotate the different strands of DNA to find the right match.  Oh that is so easy, I can do that in my sleep!

My son surprised me the other week.  Actually, what's new?  ;)  He told me that when he gets done with a science lesson early, he goes to the web site to try to answer the Question of the Week.  He submits this to Dr. Wylie, the author of the curriculum. Apparently he's been doing this for several weeks!  Hmmmm, how did he do this without my knowledge????  While sitting here keeping an "eye on him" I'm usually engrossed in Latin, history, researching costumes, etc. Obviously, I get really engrossed with my work.  ;)  Thankfully, Apologia has a great web site so he already knew that was an approved web site for him to surf.  He informed me that for the first few weeks he got e-mails from Dr. Wylie, kindly telling him that his answers to the Question of the Week were wrong, but Dr. Wylie encouraged him to keep trying. 

These questions are not easy.  At least not to me, ahem, who took honors college prep science classes in high school.  My son likes to forward these to me so I can try to answer them.  Hmmmm.....

Here's one of them:

Suppose you are sitting down to a spicy dinner made by someone who knows a bit about chemistry. She tells you that she has made two spicy-hot entrees for you: one with a spice that has a lot of fat-soluble chemicals and one with a spice that has very few fat-soluble chemicals. She wants you to tell her which entrée contains which type of spice.

Question:
Using only what you have at the dinner table, how would you identify which entrée has which spice?" 

Hmmmmmm, I had no idea.  My son, however, said that the correct answer is..."mix both entees with a fatty food item on the plate SEPARATELY and then see which tastes the spiciest."

He was correct!  He has also gotten the next two correct as well.  The student who gets the most correct answers in a 12 week period gets to choose a cool prize.  I appreciate curriculums/programs like this that encourage kids to learn more and enjoy school.  Even though he plans to become a lawyer, and not a scientist, he is having a lot of fun! 

My daughter had a fascinating experiment last week.  She was going to study osmosis with an egg, vinegar, karo corn syrup and distilled water.  I couldn't imagine what the process would involve.  When I took Biology I in high school, we used dialysis tubing filled with corn syrup and tied off, then soaked in a tub of water.  Apologia's Biology  is great.  It's thorough in content, yet uses everyday items around the house to conduct experiements. 

First my daughter got an egg from the refrigerator and put it in a cup full of vinegar and let it sit for 24 hours.  After 24 hours, the shell dissolved and the egg inflated by 1/2"! On the left is a regular egg from the refrigerator and on the right is the inflated egg.

 After she carefully rinsed off the wiggly egg and measured and recorded the circumferance...

she put it in a cup full of karo corn syrup and left that for 24 hours.  Imagine our shock when we discovered this!

She carefully took it out, rinsed it and measured the circumferance.  It was much smaller in circumferance.  Then she placed it in a cup of distilled water for 24 hours.  The egg plumped up again!

Isn't that an incredible way to learn osmosis?!

My son has been excited to start Apologia's rigorous science program with seventh grade General Science. 

The first module is a review of the history of science (and you thought you'd escape a history lesson!  lol)  He had fun reviewing ancient cultures, like Egypt and China,  who dabbled with science before they knew what science actually was.  He reviewed how the early Greeks started to get a foothold in scientific discovery, just to be overshadowed by the Dark Ages.  During the Dark Ages, alchemists enjoyed playing with various chemicals, creating strange concoctions that produced amazing effects (chemical reactions). They had no idea what was happening or why.  Nevertheless, they attempted to produce gold from lead and other substances. Vainless attempts at this is what comes from not understanding science. 

Last year my kids read a great literature book, The Trumpeter of Krakow, while learning about the Dark Ages in history. This is a wonderful 1929 Newberry Award book set in Poland with the main plot line about an actual historical event in Krakow that caused the trumpet's broken note...that is reenacted even today if you visit the city.  A side story was of one alchemist, who scared off the bad guys with his eery concoctions (chemical reactions).  My kids had found this scene most thrilling!

Recently I read aloud GA Henty's A March on London: Being a Story of Wat Tyler's Insurrection.   The hero, who helps to tame the insurrection, has a father who is an alchemist.  When he leaves his father to fight for the king, he is worried about leaving his father defenseless against the impassioned mobs who were certain to threaten their home.  The father assured his son, that with his various chemicals, he had a plan.  My kids anxiously awaited this scene (which didn't come until towards the end of the book), when the hero came home, victorious from taming the insurrections.  On arrival home, the son listened to the story of how his father scared the bejeebers out of the attackers with a glowing, gibbering skull and flashes of light emanating from the property.  Every detail hysterically delighted us!  The book explained in detail how nothing supernatural was going on.   The alchemist merely knew that certain substances produced glowing effects (chemical reactions), although he had no idea why.  

My son got to do a lab to show chemical reactions.   He boiled some cabbage leaves in water.  Then he put some of that and vinegar into an empty soda pop bottle.  He had baking soda in a balloon, which he put onto the neck of the bottle.  When he dumped the baking soda from the balloon into the bottle he got to see all kinds of reactions.  The fizzing  (chemical reaction) produced gas which inflated the balloon.   The cabbage water had been pink.  But after a while it turned blue, because of yet another chemical reaction.   

One thing I like about the Apologia books, is that Dr. Wylie explains exactly what is happening!  My son was able to write a great lab report on the checmical reactions in the experiment and the connections he learned between real science and alchemy. 

Spring has sprung!  Woo hoo! Temperatures are warmer.  That means I have an outside life again! ;)  Last night we went for a walk.  Because dh went with us, that was an hour long walk, so I was wiped out!  lol  Then ds got his telescope out, to look for the space shuttle, ATV and space station in the SW part of the sky at 8:30 pm.  Hmmmmmm, that time came and went without a high flying object, so I ran inside to check the NASA web site.  Although their sighting charts have the space shuttle schedule for nightly viewing across the skies all week, it actually landed in Florida an hour before we were supposed to see it fly across the sky.  Interesting.  LOL  Anyway, I checked the sighting schedule and got more specific information for our area and we looked to the NW at 8:57 pm and we saw the space station.  The ATV was to fly across about 30 minutes later, but the dc had to get to bed.  

While watching the space station, a lady, who had been walking through the neighborhood, asked if that's what we were watching.  She says she has seen the space shuttle, etc often over the skies.  She even suggested going to Enchanted Rock, away from the city lights. They did that one night and saw the Milky Way!  WOW!  I looked at dh and said we need to camp or get a hotel for the night and do that.  lol

12yos needs a challenge to stay on task.  Hence, I posed the question, "How tall is the house?" for his latest science objective.  Our literature and history books have been interspersed by sailors who sight the stars for navigation.  Surely, he could sight the top of our house? ;)

On Monday, I handed him a printout on how to build a sextant. After a fine sextant was completed, I handed him another print out on finding latitude.   He practiced with a height he could measure, our tall bookcase in the schoolroom.  He madea  few mistakes at first.  Undaunted, the gears of his brain whirled while he adjusted his calculations and figured out how to correctly assess height.  He got to apply all of the math skills he's been learning.  He's currently doing geometry and learned a new skill for this lesson, how to use tangent.  This makes tangent quite useful, a handy skill when he officially learns it in his math book!  He'll have a wonderful ah-ha! moment when he meets tangent again in math class! ;) 

Then he was ready to tackle the house! Here he is sighting the chimney. 

 I stood at his side, reading the protractor for him, telling him when the plumb line measured 45 degrees.  He couldn't keep the chimney in sight, so he decided to measure to the top of the eaves.  He walked toward the house, sighting with his sextant, until I told him that I saw the plumb line reach 45 degrees.  At that point he stopped and we got the measuring tape out. 

 I walked the end of the measuring tape to the edge of the house, while he held onto the bulk of it, measuring the distance from the house to where he stood.  That was between 16-17'.  Then he got to work on his calculations. Apparently the eaves are 21'5" from the ground. 

Next questions: What's our latitude?  Can he sight Polaris tonight? 

A year and a half ago we switched from A Beka to new science curriculums.  DD completed Apologia's General Science last year and is currently studying Physical Science.  We are halfway through the book.  The second half of the book is all about physics.  One of the things I love about Apologia, along with Dr. Wylie's Young Earth Creation teaching, is the experiments.  We can actually be successful with most of them.  He has us use common household objects and explains what we should be looking for.  Here are some pictures of an experiment dd recently did on velocity.

She released 2 eggs simultaneously, one behind the other, and noted that not much happened.  BTW, see that top book on the stack?  Here's a close up.  The kids thought it would be a hoot to use this specific book on top!

On to the next step!

Then she released one at the top of the ramp and noted what happened when it collided into the egg at the bottom of the ramp.  Don't worry. There was minimal damage.

Finally, she released these two eggs simultaneously.  Prepared for the predicted mass of destruction????

After completing the experiments, she does a KWO (like she learned with Institute in Excellence in Writing-I'll share more about them later) then writes a lab report.  The action of the experiment helps her to experience what Dr. Wylie is trying to teach her in the book.  The write up of the lab report causes her to think through the connections of the whys and hows of the experiment.  This helps her to cement information for the test.

Another thing I like about Apologia are the multi media discs.  She gets to watch cool movies and graphics that pertain to her studies. That's more than I got in public school, even in honors classes!  In addition, while reading her text book, which Dr. Wylie has written to the student in an interesting and personal manner, she listens to it being read aloud on an mp3 file on her pc.  There are also supports on the Apologia web site to help her with her studies. 

When we first got these tomes, I feared how she'd ever succeed, since she's had her share of learning struggles.  With the above helps, she also needed to learn how to study for the test.  She has learned to always study vocabulary.  In addition, at the end of each chapter is a study guide.  After completing that and checking her work, she knows the ones she missed are the things to study for the test.  Dr. Wylie writes excellent tests, I feel, and also gives study tips in the book.  She has done quite well!

12yos on the other hand, won't start Apologia until next school year.  Because he has a naturally inquisitive mind, I sort of let him loose.  Recently he built a model engine from a kit.

He also watched The Magic Schoolbus I had taped when he was a toddler, viewing the episode on engines.  In addition, he read about engines in dd's old 6th grade A Beka science book.  Then he needs to write a summary in his science journal on engines.  

Here he is, giving me a 5 minute demonstration on how engines work!  His next field of study will be Galileo.