I didn't use any special props or activities to learn about the brain. We mostly just read a book and looked at our pictures and diagrams in our big books. I did have a little print out for them, but it wasn't colored. The book we read, however, was really good. That entire series is really good. It had some pretty difficult concepts explained in very simple terms. I wasn't really planning on having the kids learn much more than what a brain is, where it is, and what it does, but we ended up labeling the brain stem, cerebrum, and cerebellum. And the kids could tell me what each of those three parts of the brain does generally.
Next we tackled the lungs. Same thing, we read and looked at the books and discussed what the lungs. We practiced using our lungs and talked about how when we are active our bodies need more oxygen, so our lungs need to breathe faster and harder, but when we are still we don't need as much so we don't breathe as hard. This is another of the body parts Joshua remembers really well from 2 years ago so we didn't need to discuss a great deal. What we did do, though, is buy some balloons at Party Land and after I had tried to loosen them up as much as possible, the kids tried to blow up the balloons and see how much air their lungs actually could hold. I was surprised that my lungs don't actually hold that much air - I suppose to some degree it was compressed in the balloon? I don't know. Anyway, I thought my lungs were bigger. The kids couldn't blow up the balloons very well, although Joshua did blow it up successfully a few times, but they thought it was really neat to know that the air inside the balloon - as little as there was - was just moments before in their lungs and that the oxygen was gone! Magic.
For the heart we had to just look at our diagrams because I didn't have a book to read from the library. That's ok because I feel like I know enough about the heart (ok, I know enough about all of these basic organs) to explain it to the kids. We talked about the chambers and the valves (although I called the valves doors) and how the heart and lungs work together to get the oxygen we breathe into all the parts of our body. We discussed how blood comes into the heart and to the lungs to get oxygen, and that blood is from the veins, and then the blood leave the lungs and going through the heart back into the body is the blood with the oxygen and that blood is carried in the arteries. I felt like I had to explain that because every diagram shows blue veins and red arteries, as well as blue and red chambers of the heart and I thought it would be confusing if you didn't know there was a difference. I'm not sure if they understood that part completely. But it's ok, the main goal was to get them to understand where the heart is and what the heart does. We also mentioned other functions of blood, besides carrying oxygen.
That morning for breakfast we made heart muffins. I got this idea from my sister-in-law who mentioned on her blog that if you put a marble in the muffin tin the muffins would bake in the shape of hearts. Mine were less successful, but I know what went wrong. I think the bigger the marble you use (like a sharp shooter) the better, and also, don't use the cheapest flimsiest muffin tin liners, like mine. I think the silver foil muffin tins that are quite a bit more stiff would create perfect heart shaped muffins. Ours look like cupcakes because we dyed them pink (red) but I promise I used a muffin recipe and added dried cranberries for decoration. They were completely suitable to eat for breakfast.
We also found our veins in are body, and tested our heart rate at resting and after running around, although we didn't record our heart rates. I didn't have a stop watch or second timer, and I didn't think of it in time. That would have been a great little mini math exercise. (I'm trying to get more math into our lessons. It's not going very well so far.
I should also mention, we are up to the letter H h. It just happened to coincide with Heart.
And lastly, as we have completed learning all about our internal organs, we finished our body posters. Here are the final products, plus some detail shots of our hearts and lungs.
Next we tackled the lungs. Same thing, we read and looked at the books and discussed what the lungs. We practiced using our lungs and talked about how when we are active our bodies need more oxygen, so our lungs need to breathe faster and harder, but when we are still we don't need as much so we don't breathe as hard. This is another of the body parts Joshua remembers really well from 2 years ago so we didn't need to discuss a great deal. What we did do, though, is buy some balloons at Party Land and after I had tried to loosen them up as much as possible, the kids tried to blow up the balloons and see how much air their lungs actually could hold. I was surprised that my lungs don't actually hold that much air - I suppose to some degree it was compressed in the balloon? I don't know. Anyway, I thought my lungs were bigger. The kids couldn't blow up the balloons very well, although Joshua did blow it up successfully a few times, but they thought it was really neat to know that the air inside the balloon - as little as there was - was just moments before in their lungs and that the oxygen was gone! Magic.
For the heart we had to just look at our diagrams because I didn't have a book to read from the library. That's ok because I feel like I know enough about the heart (ok, I know enough about all of these basic organs) to explain it to the kids. We talked about the chambers and the valves (although I called the valves doors) and how the heart and lungs work together to get the oxygen we breathe into all the parts of our body. We discussed how blood comes into the heart and to the lungs to get oxygen, and that blood is from the veins, and then the blood leave the lungs and going through the heart back into the body is the blood with the oxygen and that blood is carried in the arteries. I felt like I had to explain that because every diagram shows blue veins and red arteries, as well as blue and red chambers of the heart and I thought it would be confusing if you didn't know there was a difference. I'm not sure if they understood that part completely. But it's ok, the main goal was to get them to understand where the heart is and what the heart does. We also mentioned other functions of blood, besides carrying oxygen.
That morning for breakfast we made heart muffins. I got this idea from my sister-in-law who mentioned on her blog that if you put a marble in the muffin tin the muffins would bake in the shape of hearts. Mine were less successful, but I know what went wrong. I think the bigger the marble you use (like a sharp shooter) the better, and also, don't use the cheapest flimsiest muffin tin liners, like mine. I think the silver foil muffin tins that are quite a bit more stiff would create perfect heart shaped muffins. Ours look like cupcakes because we dyed them pink (red) but I promise I used a muffin recipe and added dried cranberries for decoration. They were completely suitable to eat for breakfast.
We also found our veins in are body, and tested our heart rate at resting and after running around, although we didn't record our heart rates. I didn't have a stop watch or second timer, and I didn't think of it in time. That would have been a great little mini math exercise. (I'm trying to get more math into our lessons. It's not going very well so far.
I should also mention, we are up to the letter H h. It just happened to coincide with Heart.
And lastly, as we have completed learning all about our internal organs, we finished our body posters. Here are the final products, plus some detail shots of our hearts and lungs.
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| Joshua's heart has extra pumping capacity - notice the SIX chambers. He did that on purpose. |
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