Week 5 BONES!!

Perfect topic so close to Halloween. This was the beginning of a two weeks of bones. There is so much to learn. Learn we did. Seeme like we had an experiment or an activity every day. We also started using The Magic School Bus Human Body Kit this week and the kids had alot of fun with that especially Skyler. Granted the Magic School Bus is aimed at younger kids but the boys are still good with the chapter books and the kits are pretty cool so far with the experiments. Of course they used Brainpop and I still am saying that Brainpop is just wonderful. My kids all love the little movies and games they even ask to "play" brainpop when school is over.

We managed to get a pig bone from a butcher so they could really see the marrow. They were really amazed to feel that rock hard bone had such a soft middle! Of course they were sad to know that it came from a pig. My kids are just sweet that way. We tried to make a microscope slide but I am not too good at that yet so we did look up images on google and they were OK with that.

We also learned all about joints and synovial fluid. This is a ball and socket model from the Magic School Bus Kit. The kids all said it looked like one of theose old video game controllers, I think they meant atari lol. We also threw in a bit of nature with an owl pellet. I bought them online guaranteed to have a complete skeleton. You can see that here. They also noticed the "ball" at the end of the pig bone so that was a good hands on expierence foe them to have. We made sure to use and wiggle all our joints as well as we talked about them! They looked so silly. I will say they are enjoying science this year and seem way more into it than they have in the past. I have also started having Skyler do her writing here where I usually fill in lapbook pieces and labelings after she and I discuss it. She is 7 and getting older so it's time.

Here they are all working together on the lapbook pieces that go along with the book The Magic School Bus Missing Bones. They have gotten a kick outta hearing "beware old ghost John long white bones and the rest all gone"!! All in all it was a fun full week for science and I had fun too so that was even better!! I took a ton of pictures as usual and couldn't post them all but you can see them here.

Week 4 for science CELLS!!!

The kids seemed to get into this one way more than microscopes or the Hands of a Child Lapbooks on conception and birth. We did experiments though so that could be it. I also learned that as far as they are concerned they could care less how a microscope works or why or the names of the parts they just want it to work! We studied the basic building blocks for life this week CELLS! Brainpop was awesome as usual for this subject except for the younger version for Skyler, but she still enjoyed watching the older kids movies. They all seem to like brainpop I just cannot say enough about it!

We found out that while cells are microscopic there is actually a cell you can see, an egg! We also learned that the yellow stuff (yolk) is not the baby chicken but what the baby chicked uses to nuture itself. My kids were pretty happy about that one! We also learned about the cells regulating our temperature as well as cold blooded vs. warm blooded! For our grand finale of the Cell Week we made a cell cake that I will say turned out pretty darned good. Even better when you realize I am so not the cook!

All in all for science it was a great week! For science anyway LOL. If you would like to see more pictures you can here.

We started science this week!

We are learning about conception to birth this week. Our main book we are using is It's So Amazing. This is a cute book the only thing is it talks about everything and I know some won't appreciate that. It talks about all different types of love for one thing including homosexual feelings. I just read the book and answered any questions my children had which really was not much on that subject. My children laughed at the little cartoon bird and bee! My son got very grossed out when talking about a womans monthly and my youngest declared that "no boy is gonna do nuthn like that with me"!!

In addition to this book we are also using Hands of A Child lapbooks. Human Reproduction for the boys and Lily and the Amazing Journey for Skyler. These lapbooks focus on the changes in our bodies, pregnancy and of course birth. We will be doing the activities to go along with what we have read in the book. It will take two weeks to complete.

The lapbook pieces will start our notebook we are making for the year for each child instead of the traditional file folder type.

We are also using Brain Pop. I got this mostly for the science movies as a little added bonus but wow! This site is amazing and if possible buy the membership! It has so much more than just movies. It has lesson plans, activities and even little quizes. It has been a hit with all of my kids so far. Skyler has even used it for math.

Here they are all working on the vocabulary words for their lapbooks!

They all are loving Brain Pop so far!!