To coincide with our flu bug - now we've all officially had it although only 3 of us have thrown up - we jumped right to the digestive system and we'll work on the heart and lungs in a few days.
Since I don't have a lot of time, we crammed this all into one day. This is a topic we covered two years ago and Joshua hasn't really forgotten a thing about it. He almost could tell me all the organs involved in digestion (well, we don't really talk about the liver or gallbladder, not yet anyways.) So we read a book about digestion, we looked at our diagrams in our big books and that was fun. We talked about why Abigail had been throwing up all last night and how that works (that's the not digesting part) and then I had a couple of mini coloring sheets for them. The coloring sheets were in pairs, one set was already colored and labeled, and the second set was blank and black and white so they could fill it in.
Then our visual. This was kind of gross. You know, the body is a magnificent and wondrous thing, but it's also kind of gross sometimes. I took the leftovers from their breakfast and threw them in a plastic bag, then I added some vinegar and told them that was like the stomach acid. After I closed the sphincter (made a VERY tight knot in the bag) we watched the "stomach" digest the food. Sick. Joshua wouldn't even touch it. But we could see that when the stomach twists and turns and squishes itself the food gets smaller and smaller and smaller until the other door (whatever that other sphincter is called) opens up and the food moves down it's journey. I thought this was an awesome idea. I know the kids were really interested, but they were too grossed out to participate more than listen and look a little. I don't blame them, it looked like vomit. And we've all seen a little too much of that around here lately.
Since I don't have a lot of time, we crammed this all into one day. This is a topic we covered two years ago and Joshua hasn't really forgotten a thing about it. He almost could tell me all the organs involved in digestion (well, we don't really talk about the liver or gallbladder, not yet anyways.) So we read a book about digestion, we looked at our diagrams in our big books and that was fun. We talked about why Abigail had been throwing up all last night and how that works (that's the not digesting part) and then I had a couple of mini coloring sheets for them. The coloring sheets were in pairs, one set was already colored and labeled, and the second set was blank and black and white so they could fill it in.
Then our visual. This was kind of gross. You know, the body is a magnificent and wondrous thing, but it's also kind of gross sometimes. I took the leftovers from their breakfast and threw them in a plastic bag, then I added some vinegar and told them that was like the stomach acid. After I closed the sphincter (made a VERY tight knot in the bag) we watched the "stomach" digest the food. Sick. Joshua wouldn't even touch it. But we could see that when the stomach twists and turns and squishes itself the food gets smaller and smaller and smaller until the other door (whatever that other sphincter is called) opens up and the food moves down it's journey. I thought this was an awesome idea. I know the kids were really interested, but they were too grossed out to participate more than listen and look a little. I don't blame them, it looked like vomit. And we've all seen a little too much of that around here lately.
A lot of people home school, but I haven't met any (yet) who do as thorough and creative a job of it as you do. I am amazed by you!
ReplyDelete