Salominds in the Classroom-building a redd

We have been talking about each stage of the salmon life cycle.

Once the salmon has made it up stream the female begins to build a redd ( a sort of gravel nest) by swishing her tail.  Once she has laid her eggs the male covers the eggs with his milt to fertilize them.  The eggs should be protected under the gravel from predators and other dangers.

The children did an experiment to see how a successful redd is built and what can happen if there is not enough vegetation on the river banks.

They made about 30 tiny eggs out of clay and then collected different size pebbles.  They put the pebbles in two different containers and then placed the eggs in the pebbles.  On one side of the container they put a layer of sand.  Once held up the side of the container to replicate the river bank and the other poured water over the eggs.  In the second bowl they cover the sand with a green cloth to represent vegetation.  They then observed what happened to the eggs.

They both concluded that the vegetation overwhelmingly kept the eggs protected while without the vegetation the eggs were smothered in sand and washed around the container.

Human Anatomy-The Digestive System

 We've finally made it to the digestive system!  Yay!  I've been looking forward to this one because there are so many cool activities to do.

After reading some books and watching a few videos on the digestive system as well as watching the Magic School Bus episode we got to work.

We got our ideas from this great blog post.

L measured out each part of her digestive system starting with her mouth using different coloured pieces of string.  I helped her tie them together and then she labelled them with their length.

mouth 3 inches, oesophagus 10 inches, stomach 6 inches, small intestine 15 feet, large intestine 4 feet.

Once she had them all tied together we went outside to see how long her actual digestive system was.  She was floored and couldn't even believe that all fit inside her tiny body!  

I coiled it all on her stomach to get an idea of how it all fit in.

Now this was a super fun hands on demonstration of how the whole process of digestion works.

First off L cut up an almond butter sandwich to represent biting.

 She then mashed it up to represent chewing with her back molars.

 Then swallowing and going down the oesophagus into the stomach.

 Pour in some coke for stomach acid.

 Mash it up with your hands to represent the stomach muscles digesting.

 Once it's an ooy gooy mess pour it into the small intestine or in this case black sock.

 Use you hands like the muscles squeezing out the nutrients that are absorbed into the blood stream.

 Use paper towels around the sock for the large intestine to get all of the moisture out.

 Cut a hole in the tip of the sock and then for the grossest part.  Well you can guess....

Awesome!!!

The River System

We have moved on in our geography unit to rivers of the world.  I gave L a list of the top 10 longest rivers in the world and she had to find them in her atlas and then mark them on a world map.

We also went into more depth about actual river systems and after looking at some handouts on rivers and answering some questions L made up this diagram.

I love how she added in the little bird.

We found a wealth of information on the fantastic site Kid World Citizen.

Human Anatomy-the Muscular System

I wasn't too excited about doing the muscular system since I wasn't sure what we were going to do for it but L really wanted to do it next so here is what we came up with.

We read some books from the library and talked about the three different types of muscles-smooth, cardiac and skeletal.  We also talked about how muscles work in pairs and L did an experiment observing how her bicep and tricep work together.

Together we made this model of how the muscles work on the arm using elastics.  The cardboard tubes represent the bones of the arm.  It was pretty tricky getting the elastics to fit into the holes and tie them etc. As L lowered her arm she could see how the elastic expanded and contracted.

L added the muscles to her body using tissue paper.  She drew red lines with a crayon to represent the stripes in the muscles.  She then labeled the major muscles.

During the labelling Daddy came home and it was perfect timing as when he got out of the shower I asked him to come to the kitchen with his shirt off.  He has very little body fat so we were able to see each of the major muscles in action and L was able to name them.

Next up was seeing how the tendons work on the hand.  I found a tutorial here.  L and I cut the straws and she threaded embroidery thread into them and L tied a bead to the end.  I did the tricky work of taping the straws to the paper.

It was really neat to see how pulling the threads all together would make the fingers move or just pulling one would make that finger move.

Ocean Zones

L has been interested in the different zones of the Ocean for ages and I keep promising her I will help her make a diorama.  Well that day finally happened today.

L had taken out two of her books on the subject last night and was reading them before bed.  This morning she had them out again and was reading them to LJ.  This is where the beauty of homeschooling comes in.  I scrapped all previous plans and asked if she wanted to make a diorama.  She was all over it.

We used a shoe box and L painted the layers with different shades of blue.  We were lucky enough to have an Ocean sticker book from the Natural History Museum that has all of the deep sea creatures.  Once she added all of the animals she typed up the labels and glued them on.

The books she used were 100 Facts Deep Ocean by Miles Kelly and Ocean Sticker Book from Natural History Museum.

Just love having the flexibility to follow L's interests and expand upon them!

Topographical Maps

Last week we were all about topographical maps.  We started off by looking at a handout on how topographical maps are made and looked at the physical picture of a place and then the topographical map.

Then the fun began.  L made up a tiny mountain range with two peaks.  She trace around it and then I took a piece of string and sliced a layer off the bottom.  She traced her mountain range again.  I kept slicing off layers and she kept tracing them until at the end she had made a topographical map of her mountain range.  We decided that each layer would represent 10meters so at the end L was able to see how tall each peak was.  It was so cool that we tried a few other types of mountains.

Once she had a firm understanding of how a topographical map is made she matched the landforms on this sheet.  L wanted to make one of the landforms so we did the opposite and made layers from one of the topographical maps and put them together.

Yup.  A topographical map of L's hand.  She loved this!

Maps and Mapping

We started our mapping study by re-reading Me on the Map by Joan Sweeny.  We did several activities years ago with this that you can read about

  here.

This time L made a map of her bedroom.  I love how she drew her chair from a bird's eye view!

We also read the fantastic book Follow that Map by Scot Ritchie .  The book follows a group of children looking for their pets through all different types of maps.

I brought out of a map of our town and L and I took turns giving each other compass directions to different places.  We also looked in our family atlas (which happens to be from 1965!!!) and enjoyed seeing how different countries had changed names and borders.  The population maps were also very interesting!

Next up was making a treasure map.  We found some wonderful tutorials on Youtube that we followed.  Below is L's treasure map.  She wrote the directions to the treasure on the back of the map.

We talked about topographical and physical maps and then prepared to make a physical map of Africa.  Once again looking at the atlas and maps on the Internet L sketched out different landforms on a small map of Africa.

I then drew an outline of Africa on a big  piece of card stock and L added in all of the landforms.  She used modelling clay for the mountains, embroidery thread for the rivers, felt for the lakes and sparkles for the deserts. So much fun!

After she completed the landforms she made a legend and labelled all of the major rivers, lakes, mountains and deserts.

Human Anatomy-The Respiratory System

Getting back to human anatomy the last system we studied was the respiratory system.  

We started off at lunch with a bunch of grapes.  I explained to L how our lungs are like a bunch of grapes in that the stem looks like the bronchi to one lung, the smaller branches are like the bronchioles and the grapes are the air sacks or alveoli.

We played some fun games blowing a feather across the table using different strengths of breath and felt how we can breath low down taking big breaths.  We experimented with how big deep breaths can calm us down and relax us.

I then set up a game for L using bean bags as oxygen.  We wrote labels along our deck of mouth, lungs and muscles.  L had to grab a bean bag(oxygen) from the mouth-take a deep breath in and then run to the lungs and then to the bottom of the deck where the muscles were.  At the muscles she did jumping jacks until she was out of breath then she dropped her oxygen and had to run up to the mouth to get more.

This was a fun way to burn off some energy while learning about how our muscles need oxygen and the harder our body works the more oxygen it needs.

L added in the lungs using bubble wrap and straws for the trachea and bronchi.  She drew in the bronchioles in the lungs with a marker.

This was by far the coolest.  Making a human lung model.  Super easy to make.  We cut the end off a plastic bottle, cut the top off a balloon and attached it to the end.  We then attached another balloon to a straw and pushed it down into the bottle.  We sealed up the top with play dough.

L pulled down on the bottom ballon (diaphragm) and the balloon lung filled up with air!  

So simple yet effective.  It was eye opening seeing how really important our diaphragm is. It really doesn't get enough credit!

The last thing L did was an experiment using different age family members.  L recorded our breaths for a minute at rest and then again for after a minute of exercise.  She did this with a 2 year old, me, herself, daddy and granny.

What she found out is that younger people take more breathes in general and everyone takes more breaths after exercise.

She recorded all of her data in a double bar graph.

Next up the muscular system.....

Meet Frank

I found a tutorial for this adorable mouse and when I showed it to L she just had to make it!

While I was doing another project she spent the afternoon felting up the head.  She felted the nose and eyes and I helped with the ears and tiny paw.  

L was thrilled to have this little guy as a new addition to her room.  A relatively simple needle felting project for a Sunday afternoon and so effective.

I you would like to try it yourself the tutorial is from Pip's Poppies.  While you're there take some time to check out her other amazing creations.  Truly inspiring.

Human Anatomy- Internal Organs

I had pinned this cool idea from The Pinay Homeschooler ages ago and finally we got to try it out ourselves.

After finishing the nervous system I thought it would be fun to do an overview of the internal organs before we move on to the respiratory system. 

I downloaded the three part organ cards from the Pinay Homeschooler's blog and got out the clay.  L was already familiar with most of them but was interested in reading about their roles and functions in the body.  We then set to work making the organs out of modelling clay.  This was fun!  As you can see there are two sets of each organ as I joined L for this activity.

After we had finished we drew an outline of ourselves on some cardboard and looked up what the organs look like on the inside of our body.  We then attempted to put them in their correct places on our cardboard bodies.  Wow we were amazed at how much is squashed into the insides of our bodies!

Next up the respiratory system.....

Human Anatomy - The Nervous System

The next stop on our journey through the human body is the nervous system.  Once again we took out several books on the subject from the library.  

L added the nerves and spinal column to her body by using green embroidery thread dipped in glue.  She braided some of the thread to make the spinal column.  Once that was finished she glued on a brain inside the skull and labelled it.

We talked about how the brain is the main control centre of the body and how it sends and receives messages through the nerves and spinal column.

Next L made this super cool brain hat which can be found here.  I want to say a huge THANK YOU to all of those hardworking people who share their work for free with all of us.  You are so kind to share your learning tools with everyone!  L loved this activity.

We talked about all of our senses and what parts of the brain controls them.  We also did some brain games on the computer and looked at optical illusions. 

 One of our favourites was to look at a picture of many objects and try to memorize them for 1 minute.  We then waited for a minute and tried to recall them.  We both remembered over half which is supposed to be pretty good.

I finally got around to making some play dough for our next brain activity.  We looked up a brain model on the internet and L made it out of play dough and labelled the parts.  When she saw the picture I took she asked if she could edit it with an online editor we use.  This is her finished product. Much more spectacular!

To finish up the nervous system I wrote out cards for each part of the brain and what it controls.  I then wrote out different actions or things we do such as "taste a lemon", "watch a movie" "walk on a balance beam" and L had to place them under the correct part of the brain.

Next we are going to move away from systems for a bit and delve into the internal organs....

Graphing and Charting

What's the easiest way to poll a lot of people quickly?  Facebook of course!

Last week I asked on my FB page what all of my friends and family's favourite ice cream flavours are on behalf of L.  Once the results were in I showed L how to make a tally chart.  After doing this she was able to determine which flavours were the favourites, how many people responded and how many flavours were chosen.

We went shopping for some school supplies yesterday and L was excited to get started in her new graph paper booklet.  I showed her how to make a bar graph and here are the results.

I also wanted to show L one more way to see the results of a poll or survey so I decided to show her how to do a pie chart.  Haha I quickly realized this involves some math!  Yes I had to call in reinforcements in the form of hubby to help to get the correct percentages and make up the pie chart.  L coloured each of the sections and made the colour key.  I really wanted her to do this because it is such a great visual of the results.

Stay tuned for more charts and graphs this summer!

Banyan Tree Oil Pastels

This is such a stunning yet simple art project.  I followed the directions from this site

First off L and I looked at different pictures of Banyan trees on the internet and talked about where you would find one and why they look how they do.

We then drew an outline of a tree onto our paper and painted it in with black acrylic paint.  L added her branches as she was painting.

Once the paint had dried we started colouring in each of the spaces with two colours trying to blend them together in the middle.  We both decided to have our trees in the water and therefore colour reflections.

This is L's completed work.  I love how she added the sun.  Now that she knows what the project is all about she said next time she will fill more of her page with branches.  I'm proud of her for sticking with all of the colouring as she had a lot of white space to fill.

This is my tree.  I really enjoyed doing this project along side L.

We have decided we are going to try this project again and make a whole forest of these magnificent trees!