The Circulatory System-Blood Types

Who knew learning about blood types could be so much fun!!  I found these cool activities on Pintrest.  The first one is how to test which blood types are compatible with each other.

L labelled each of four glasses with each of the basic blood types A, B, AB and O.  She then added red, blue, and red and blue food colouring to one glass each.  She left O clear.

 L then chose a blood group to be a donor and one to be a receiver.  She poured a bit of the receiver into a clean glass and put some drops of the donor into it.  If the receiver blood turned colour then they weren't compatible.

 L recorded her results on a chart that I printed off from here.  By this experiment she was able to determine which blood types were compatible and which could be universal donor and receivers.

 We then opened up our blood bank and started a blood drive.  L got out lots of her stuffs and porcelain dolls and they all donated blood.  L put in the IV and determined which blood type each stuffy had and then placed a blood type sticker on their chest.  She wrote on a card what type of blood was donated and put it in our blood bank.  Then all the stuffies went of and had fun.  Soon some of them got into car accidents and fell off cliffs!

 They were quickly brought to the hospital and needed blood transfusions.  L could tell their blood type from the sticker on their chest.  She then had to check the blood bank to see if we had blood that was compatible.  

L looooved this game so much.  She was so excited to have all of her dolls get blood transfusions. What a great way to learn about blood.  I got this idea from Highhill Homeschool.

Human Anatomy-The Circulatory System

We've moved on to the Circulatory system.  L already knows quite a bit about this system from watching the Magic School Bus episode on this topic.  We read some cool books from the library and found out why we shiver and why our feet fall asleep.  L did a colouring page on the heart colouring the different parts blue or red depending on if they carried oxygen or carbon dioxide.

We also talked about our pulse and L did an experiment on how our pulses change when we exercise and then described why this happens.

Then we got to the real fun!  I found this fantastic game here for free!  We love free!

We spent part of the morning colouring and assembling the game and then excitedly played it.

 The main gist of the game is that each player gets a red blood cell.  They spin the spinner to move however many times the heart beats on their turn.  They have to move around the body collecting oxygen and nutrients from the lungs and intestines and then drop them off at different cells around the body where they pick up carbon dioxide and waste which needs to be deposited back in to the lungs and kidneys.  The first person to use up all of their oxygen wins.  L and I kept saying while we were playing how great this game is! 

It only uses red blood cells and L said good thing or this would be a game of war!

 Next up was making a model of our blood.  I gave her a handout on what our blood is made up of and what the job of each part is.  

We started filling the bottle with water and a bit of yellow food colouring to represent the plasma.  Then added lentils for the platelets and some cut up marshmallows for the white blood cells.  L then added a ton of Cheerios to represent the red blood cells with a bit of red food colouring.  So cool and gross!

 She finished off by doing a diagram of her work.

All About Egypt

We have a budding Egyptologist in our midst!

After starting The Story of the World-The Ancients it's all pyramids, pharaohs and mummies in our household.

L got a subscription to Little Passports for her birthday and the first country just happened to be Egypt.  L was beside herself with excitement.  It came with this tiny pyramid to excavate.  After a very long time trying to get out the treasure she finally unearthed a small bust of King Tut!

The Little Passports kit also came with a map and some cute activities.

We talked about how the ancient Egyptians wrote using hieroglyphics and invented papyrus paper.  We had a great time writing out messages to each other in hieroglyphics and trying to decode them.

The Story of the World also talks about cuneiform writing on clay tablets.  L wrote out a message into air drying clay.  

This was such an easy yet effective project.  Using toilet paper rolls and taping the tops together L was able to make some cat mummies.  She used gold paint and sharpies.  They are so cute!

I have to take a moment here to say how wonderful our library is.  L has read so many books on ancient Egypt she is somewhat of an expert.

One of her books had projects and games that children would have played in ancient Egypt.  One of the games was called senet and there were instructions on how to make up one to play.  L was soooo excited to make this.  We used an old chocolate box for the board and L made up sticks with Egyptian designs on them for the counting.  This is such a cool method instead of using dice.  You just throw the sticks and which ever ones land with the design up is the number you move your piece.  Such a simple concept but we had fun playing several games.

The biggest highlight of our Egypt study was our Egyptian family meal.  L read up on how the Egyptians ate on the floor and used only their hands and bowl of water for washing them.  We had bread, olives, feta cheese, falafels, cucumber, dates and several other things on a mat in our living room while listening to Egyptian music.  This was so much fun as everyone in the family dressed up.  

We made headbands for the kids with tin foil asps on them and I made up L's eyes with dark make up.  She was over the moon.  We also made collars earlier in the day that the kids coloured.

 Here is L's scrapbook that she created with facts and info on Egypt. If you look closely you can see some pics of our dinner.

Last thing.  I finally found some shrinky dink paper for L to made flags.  I've seen this idea all over Pintrest and L so badly wanted to do it.  She will make up a flag for all of our Little Passport countries to start.

Ancient Egypt was a blast!