Human Anatomy-Cells

I know a lot of people start with the cell when studying human anatomy but I decided to do it the other way round and cover all of the major systems first before delving deeper into the human makeup.

We have been eagerly anticipating getting to this part and the following studies on DNA, genes and genetics.  

I found this amazing activity on Pintrest ages ago and we finally got to try it out.

We printed out the templates and I traced them with black sharpie onto shrinky dink paper.  L then coloured all of the different organelles with pencil crayons.  I can't think of a better way to learn the parts of the cell.  They are so wonderfully tactile.

We watched several different videos on cells and got a great DVD from the library from Squibs called  Cells, DNA and adaptation.  It was composed mostly of a bunch of songs and raps all about cells and their functions.  I actually found a lot of it to be over my head but L loved it!  She was out dancing around the back yard making up the "cell rap".  Lets just say she really knows her organelles and their functions!

Human Anatomy-Eyes and Ears

 It's been a while since I've been able to update this blog but we have been carrying on with our human anatomy study.  We started off with the ear.  L decided she didn't want to make a model of the ear this time so instead we watched some Youtube videos on how the ear works and it's parts and then she coloured in the diagram pictured below.  We did a fun experiment to see how the ear drum works.

L covered a bowl with cling film to represent the ear drum and put a few grains of rice on the top.  She then banged loudly on a cookie sheet with a wooden spoon.  It was cool to see the grains of rice jump up and down as she banged the sheet.  This represented how sound causes the ear drum to vibrate which then sends messages to your brain about what you are hearing.

Next up the eye.  After looking at some diagrams and watching a Youtube video on the eye L made this super cool model of an eye.  I cut a ping pong ball in half and cut a small circle in both sides.

L added all of the parts using different household items.  We actually used wool to needle felt the iris as well.  L used sticky notes to label all of the parts which was quite a challenge as the model was so tiny!  She even added eyelashes and lids using electrical tape.

After making the model we did the fun experiments from this site .  It was so neat to find our blind spot and figure out which of our eyes were dominant.  

Human Anatomy-Skin

We've been learning all about the largest human organ.  That's right the skin!  It really is fascinating how important this organ is.  

L started off by watching this video on the skin from Youtube.  I can't stand this series but L thinks they are hilarious.

I found this fun experiment that measures how sensitive different areas of our skin are.  L used invisible thread, embroidery thread and yarn on different parts of her participants bodies such as the cheek, elbow and palm of the hand.  She had the subject close their eyes and she gently touched the tip of the invisible thread to the part of the skin.  If the subject didn't feel anything she would move on to the embroidery thread and then the yarn.  L recorded her results in the following chart.

This was a fun experiment to show how different parts of our skin are more sensitive than others and we talked about why that might be.

Next L did the super fun and gross experiment of covering her whole hand in white craft glue.  After waiting for it to dry she slowly peeled it off.  It just happened to be April Fool's Day so she played a gruesome trick on her granny.  The next day L examined the fake skin under the microscope and we talked about how each person has unique finger prints and how they can be used for identification.

Then it was time to make a model of her own.  I printed off a diagram of the layers of the human skin for L and she had tons of fun making this human skin model out of a sponge, felt and embroidery thread.

Human Anatomy-the renal system and a cow heart dissection!

The renal or urinary system is such an important system in our body.  We certainly didn't want to skip it.  I printed out some information on this system for L to read as well as a little diagram.  Then it was on to the experiments.  

First off L drank a large glass of water.  She recorded the time and then waited to see how long it would take her kidneys to work!

While she was waiting she mixed some sand in with a glass of water that we coloured yellow.  She poured it carefully into a coffee filter and watched how the filter cleaned the water just like the kidneys clean the blood and create urine.  

Yuck! This is what our kidney/coffee filter cleaned.

A few months back while we were doing the circulatory system I called the local butcher asking if they had any cow hearts we could dissect.  A few weeks later I forgot all about it.  Three days ago they called and said our cow heart was ready!!  Yippee.  We did a quick prep on how to do a dissection and then prepared our workspace.  L made up labels on straws to go in the aorta, pulmonary artery, pulmonary vein and the superior vena cava.

I then cut the heart in half so we could see the four different chambers.  We compared the huge size of the cow heart to our own hearts.

L took samples of the blood, heart muscle and some fat and then we made slides.

After the clean up and a bit of a play with her friend who joined us for the dissection they moved inside and inspected each of the samples under the microscope.

This whole experience was fascinating and it was so cool to get to see a real heart to help us understand how our own hearts work inside our bodies!

Human Anatomy-The Reproductive System

L has been eagerly anticipating the reproductive system, me not so much.  That is until I found this fantastic activity on Highhill Homeschool's blog

L and I have talked in some detail about how babies are made since she was 4 but this time we went into way more detail.  We read a great book on the reproductive system by Steve Parker and L asked questions as we read and discussed.  There were some interesting moments but we got through them.

The next day we were ready to make to models.  We used a small plastic ziploc bag for the uterus with two pieces of tubing taped to the sides for fallopian tubes.  The glass candle holders are ovaries and inside L made tiny clay eggs.  I cut a hole in the middle of the bottom of the bag to insert the pink straw representing the vagina.  The green tape is the cervix.

For the male parts we used a syringe for the penis, two small cups for the testicles with yellow food colouring representing semen.  The red string is for the epidermis and the tubing is the vas deferens.

Now for the re-enactment.  We started off at the beginning of the cycle with the uterus menstruating.  L poured red coloured water into the top of the uterus(bag).  We stared counting and when we got to day 14 L took an egg from the ovary and put it into the top of one of the fallopian tubes.  As it rolled down we kept counting until day 28 when she added more red liquid.  She went through the cycle several more times and then decided to try and make a baby.

This time at day 14 after she had released the egg into the fallopian tube she used her syringe to insert the semen into the vagina.  We kept counting and at day 28 instead of having menstruation the liquid turned orange which meant the egg was fertilized there was a baby.  

We didn't have a tiny baby so we used a tiny dinosaur instead.  After counting nine months the baby came out of the womb down the vagina and was born.  L really enjoyed this process and made a baby several times.

I have to say I really loved how this got down to the nitty gritty of how it all works while still staying very "scientific".  L has such a great understanding of both the male and female systems and the roles they play in reproduction.  

Frida Kahlo self portraits

L's Little Passport country this month is Mexico.  She has been reading books about life in modern day Mexico as well as the Aztecs and Mayans.  She can't get over the fact that the Aztecs used to make human sacrifices to their gods.  Very gruesome indeed!

We've been listening to Mexican music in the car and eating tacos!

We couldn't forget a very important Mexican woman and that is of course Frida Kahlo.  I've been wanted to study her life and artwork with L for a while now and this was the perfect opportunity.

L had read about Frida's life in her awesome book Girls Who Rocked the World.  We also looked at her artwork on the computer and watched this neat video  that morphs many of Frida's self portraits in and out.

The most fun of course was trying our hand at our own self portraits.  We used oil pastels and a looked at ourselves on the computer to complete our portraits.  

I absolutely adore how L's turned out.

L's self portrait

 Mommy's self portrait

L said she looks older in hers and I look younger in mine.  Thanks a lot! hehe

Human Anatomy- The Immune System

We have moved on to the immune system here.  After reading the fantastic and very detailed book Achoo by Trudee Romanek L started in on some fun experiments.

The first one involved the whole family.  We cut up a piece of bread.  The first piece we did not touch and put it straight into the ziplock bag as the control.  The second piece the whole family got to touch with their dirty hands.  L got to cough on it a bit and even dropped it on the floor for good measure.  So much fun!  Then we all washed our hands really well with lots of soap and touched the last piece of bread.  L put them all in the bags and labelled them "dirty" "clean" and "control" with the date.

I forgot a crucial part to dampen the bread a bit before we sealed the bags.  This made the process take a whole lot longer but eventual she began to see results.

 The dirty bread started to grow some blue/green mould. 

 L recorded her observations.  We concluded two things from this experiment.  1. Washing your hands really does make a big difference. 2.  Store bought bread has a ton of preservatives in it.  It took almost two weeks before we saw and change in the bread.  

Next up we learned how food is metabolized in the body and how carbon dioxide is produced.  L reproduced this effect by adding yeast and warm water to three different amounts of sugar.  

 As she added the water I placed a balloon on the top of the bottle.

After an hour this happened.  The surprising thing is you would think the bottle with the most sugar would produce the most carbon dioxide but it actually turned out opposite in our experiment.  After much Googling I was able to explain that the huge amount of sugar was too much for the yeast to eat through and therefore it couldn't eat as much or produce as much energy (carbon dioxide) this actually worked well to show how too much sugar is really bad for our bodies.

 It also lead in perfectly to our follow up talk about refined and natural sugars and their effects on our body.  L made up a list of food that she eats with good and bad sugars and she was surprised to find out that bread and pasta have glucose in them which is actually sugar and so does milk.  It really helped to her evaluate how much sugar she is having at each meal.

After finishing up with the experiments and recording her results we talked about how the white blood cells figure out which cells are good and which are bad.  L learned that they have receptors that match to specific antigens.  Basically when the T and B cells have found a cell which is bad they destroy it but leave a few T cells around to remember it for the rest of your life.

We did an activity to demonstrate this.  L found different objects around the house to be the antigens.  Some were good cells and some bad.  She made predictions whether these would be easy for the T cells to identify or hard.  She then made an imprint of them out of clay.  We hid the objects around the house and L took one imprint(receptor) at once going around searching for it's match and then decided whether it was good or she needed to destroy it.  L realized that some items like the round lids could be mistaken for other things like a coin so they were bad matches.  

This was such a cool way to understand how the white blood cells work and L absolutely loved it.  After she tried it I made up some more imprints without her looking for a bit more of a challenge.

This activity also helped L to understand how vaccines work and why we get them.