Heart/Circulatory System

We did our last science class in Cardston. It was epic. It was a last minute Halloween Party. We studied the heart, and took our pulse, studied our veins, and saw if we could move liquid as effectively/fast as a heart could (we couldn't) and then we DISSECTED TWO HEARTS!!!

One boy said "My mom would throw up if she were doing this." I personally was not squeamish at all, and was so excited by it, but I can imagine that some might not feel that way, after all, just look:

That's a cow artery.

We got a dear heart, but some of the top had been cut off (come on butcher! Don't you know this is SCIENCE?-jk)

But it was the cow heart that stole my class's heart--hehehehe, yah---

Look how HUGE it was!:

I think this is my favourite homeschool photo of myself. I debating about putting it as my Facebook profile photo hahaha.

But I found out I told my kids a fib. I said a whale's arteries were big enough to swim in. They went home and researched it, and proved me wrong....oops.

Skeletal System

For science we studied bones. That's when my favourite moment of science EVER happened. I brought out my little skeleton man and said "Bones protect our organs. Look at his head. What is the most important thing to be protected?" And quiet Hunter Blackmore shouts out:

"OUR BRAINS SO THE ZOMBIES WON'T GET THEM!!!"

Bwahahahahah! I just laughed and laughed. That was awesome.

We talked about the structure of bones, bone's joints, their strength, and what happens if you break them. We made a spine as one of our activities, and I let them take it home. It was a balloon head with a string as the spinal cord and thread spools as vertebrae and buttons as disks.

We also looked at xrays....I think my mom bought this kit for me...

Semipermeable Membranes

This week we studied the cell some more. Specifically that it has a semipermeable membrane. We made naked eggs (the scandal.)

And we put corn starch into water with iodine, but this didn't work like it has for me in the past. I guess my plastic was too high quality. The iodine was supposed to be able to go through the plastic and into the cornstarch, changing it to dark blue, but it didn't.

Oh well,

Animal Cells

As far as science goes, we did it in the evening because the zoo changed our schedule. We learned about cells. We made a cell model out of an actual model. We made cells out of pizza with the toppings being organelle parts, and then for dessert we made candy cells with oreo nuclei, frosting cytoplasm,  nerds as vesicles etc. Needless to say, the candy cells were the hit of the day.

Living or Nonliving?

For science we are studying Biology this year, which is the study of living things, so we discussed what characteristics all living things have.

As part of this, I got some water from a pond nearby and we looked at the living things in the water through a microscope. I was SO happy because there were things MOVING in the water. I was not so happy because it took forever for everyone to take their turn looking in the microscope which made antsy and bored kids, so I'm not sure how much I'll use my microscope in the future.

We have some new members in our class this year! Including new kindergarteners! Fun fun!