of good intentions......

We have been plugging away with our Human Body Project..... we've been working on bones and touched on joints (to continue next week). We have completed many mini models and booklets and had a lot of fun.
I love blogging about our successes.... you know bragging for educational purposes.... but this post is not a brag... read on.....

We made, or at least tried to make a model of the arm. The point of the model was to show how the muscles re-act when the arm is extended or bent at the elbow.

We rolled up our tubes of newspaper (3 of them).....

Then proceeded to punch (push, pull, tug and more) holes into the ends of the tubes of newspaper...






Then there was a whole bunch if finagling .... we were supposed to attach one tube to two others with a giant paper clip (I used 22 gauge wire).. then, attach two balloons, slightly inflated, to the top of the single tube. Then, stretch the balloons just past the hinge, add a hand and voila!



No Voila.......

The darn balloons, inflated or not (we tried both ways) would not for the life of me stretch across the newspaper tube without bending it in half. We tried a few different ways and got frustrated so I just held on to the balloons and showed the boys what was SUPPOSED to happen and they did get the jist of it all, but phew! how hard was that?

I guess we could redo the whole thing and use stronger tubes of some sort...but do we really want to?

OMG!!! It's been so long!!!

Well, there are no apologies or excuses.... I honestly just took a really long holiday break.... some health issues came up but we are dealing with them.

The boys have had a blast making crystals (jade and diamond).... doing lots of creative art work.... and tonnes of outdoor time. We've had sleepovers and play dates and dad was home for more than two weeks.... that was a real treat for us all.

We are finishing up the Senses part of our Human Body Project. Kind of a mish mash of different projects that I have been meaning to get to.



A lift the flap model.....



Each flap lifts to show the particular sense, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, skin... I still think it is a freaky looking model, but the boys get a kick out of it....

They also did some work on the skin and how hair grows.



Yes, that is a picture of the tongue and tastebuds.... told you it was a mish mash



This is a neat one... it was a bugger to fold and tape but worth it in the end.... it shows how hair (yarn) grows out of the follicles.



Mini slide book.. the boys love these for some reason.... nice and easy I guess. This one covers hair growth, pimples and sweat glands.

I hope to get back in the swing of blogging again.......

Keep giggling.

The Human Body Project Gets Tasty!

Smile for the Camera...



Now, open wide......

See all of the taste buds? Each section senses a different type of taste.....
Sweet, Sour, Bitter, Salty



All of it .... on our tongue...



We even learned about the bumps on our tongue called papillae.... some large ones are right at the very back of our tongue.

More taste testing to come tomorrow!

Ears, Noses, Skin & Touch....Back to the Human Body... Finally!

We have been continuing with our Human Body Project bit by bit... I just have not posted any pictures as of late due to poor time managment, kid distractions and yucky housework.

Look.... their binders are getting full....honest!


I know we left off with the Human Ear.....
We have done a few more models.... they are too fun to skip.



some double sided flash cards with the parts of the ear



a stand up model of the outer and inner ear.... this one is very simple and very easy to use - even for Halo

We also worked on the Nose.....



a lift the flap model



we talked about odors (good and bad) moving through the air.... you breath them in and reach the "smell cells"... the smell cells then send the messages to the brain



stand up model of the nose, inside and out

We did some projects on the skin and touch.



This is a neat moveable model



The magnified image lifts



the finger lifts and drops to press the key on the keyboard

This is by far one of my favorite models so far!



There are several layers that lift and then there are flaps with info underneath





There are even hair follicles and hairs!

We learned about the different nerves, touch, light touch, pressure pain, heat and cold. We alo learned where they are located amongst the skin cells... touch, pain and light touch are very close to the epidermis while pressure, heat and cold are in the lower dermis.

The boys love doing the hands on models... I am so glad I started this project with them!

Will post more as we go!

The 5 Senses - Sight... The Human Body Project Continues.....

We went on a mini vacation earlier this week and I got to stop at one of my favorite book stores..... they have an online store BookCloseouts but they have different stock at the retail location and... no shipping fees! I found a few great things like a stethoscope, tuning fork, base ten math blocks and more. My favorite by far was this....









Real Science.... The 5 Senses... 50 projects! I got it all for under $20 CDN..... I love to make my own resources but this was too good of a deal to pass up. It came with a bunch of stuff I could never make... a stethoscope (yes I bought an extra one too), touchy feely bag, blindfold, 3D letters and more.......

We have already done The Eye so we did the activities for Sight today....trying to play catch up!





The boys used the image disc (one side has a bird and the other a cage) ....twist the thread between the your fingers and watch the bird magically appear inside the cage!






This one was another disc this time with slats in it. There was an image of a cat between each slat.
Spin the disc and look in the mirror through the slats and the cat starts to run.... this is because our brain stores the images it sees for short periods of time allowing the images to appear continuously
when looking through the slats. The boys tried spinning the disc and looking at the disc in the mirror and the images appeared as one big blur.

The boys also did a few of the optical illusions shown in the workbook and had a blast... they were all fascinated. Worth the $20 right there!

Inside Our Ear Accordian Book

We did these a while back but I don't think I posted them here. They go perfectly with the Ear Model we made to day so we reviewed them after we finished making the model.







Will post more as we continue our travels through the Human Body.

What's Inside Our Ear? (or how do we hear?)

Well, we have finally started with our Human Body Project again. We do not take a summer break from school but we do change our focus to outdoor time, nature and field trips etc. So now that fall is in full swing we have been doing more indoor activities.

Today we worked on the human ear. We made a model of the ear while I talked to the boys about how our ears work.











The Outer Ear, which the boys can feel on their own body, gathers and funnels sound into the.......



Ear Canal.... stretched across the end of the canal is the Eardrum, a thin sheet of tissue. When sound waves hit the eardrum it vibrates. The vibrating eardrun passes the vibrations to the.....



Hammer, which causes the Anvil to vibrate. The Anvil, in turn, causes the Stirrup to vibrate.
The Stirrup rests on a thin sheet of tissue called the Oval Window that covers an opening in the Cochlea. The vibrating Stirrup passes the vibrations to the Oval Window, which starts a fluid inside the Cochlea moving. This moving fluid pushes and pulls on the cells in the Cochlea that change the energy in the movements into electrical energy signals sent to the nerves. All of these nerves join up to form the main Hearing, or Auditory Nerve that carries the signals to the hearing center in the brain. The brain tells us what we hear and decides if we should do anything in response.

We will be doing a couple more activities on the ear later this week as well. Hope this helped you learn a little bit about what is inside your ear. I know it helped us!

It's A Bird....It's A Plane......It's a Montage!

Well, apparently I am harboring some sort of guilt for not posting all summer... I cannot possibly put into words EVERYTHING we have done this summer, so I have decided to do a montage Giggles, Grins and Grades style. This montage will include, but is not limited to, our outings, our trips, our pets, our goofy kids, our learning experiences...some candid shots, some attention grabbers and some just plain, nice pictures. Enjoy!



This is our newest kitty.... Smudge.



Smudge likes to swim.....



alot.....



the kids love having her in the pool and well, it saves me from having to get a dog!



Smudge likes to sleep in grocery bags....silly cat.



Smudge torments the bird.....



This is Smudge the day she came home from getting fixed and declawed.



She likes to sleep in baskets too.



Baskets that have clothes in them.



In Daxter's room.... don't mind the mess.



Smudge comes with us on car trips... and walks and to soccer.....



Pretty girl....



Smudge, the wild cat.....



This is the tree that the town hacked off half the roots from (it's on our property).... the architect inspector said it would fall on the house and not to stand under it....



This is the mound of wood chips that lay where my tree once stood. The town paid to have it removed so that my kids could sleep in their beds once more. The spent the summer sleeping in the playroom for fear of the tree falling on our house.




Halo has some yummy math time.



Who knew math could be so tasty :)





I never have to ask him to do math twice LOL! Always a willing participant.



This is Niagara Falls from the top of the Sky Wheel



We went up a couple of times, once at night during some fireworks... it was amazing!



We went to one of our local museums when they had the Lego Secrets of the Pharoah Exibit.



There were some amazing creations.



We went with a homeschool group so the kids got to dress a mummy.







Can you imagine how much Lego this took to make?????



These are the baby birds that were hatched on the side of our fence.



Hungry little birds.





Two made it out of the nest.... the other was not quite so lucky.



Our neighbors gave the boys some paintable t-shirts.







All three boys had a blast painting them and it kept them busy for over an hour! (that's a record around here!)



We got a season's pass to Marineland



This is a mama and baby whale... they were so sweet to watch.



Thought this was a cool shot with the beluga whale.



They are amazing creatures.



Look at the mouths on these fish! Can you say mutant?




Yes, I was teasing the fish with a twig to get them to open those massive mouths.
Shameless, I know.



This bear has the life... looks comfortable huh?



Halo at the bear enclosure..... it's those unintentional pictures that turn out wonderfully.





Halo and Ratchet loved the deer. Daxter had some hygiene issues. Apparently deer slobber is a yucky thing. Who knew?





Some rides at Marineland.



The shows were neat to watch too.



Rides and shows and deer wear little ones out.



The next Tiger Woods?



Dad helping Halo out.





We made a model of human blood.



Corn Syrop = Plasma, Mini Marshmallows = white blood cells, Cinnamon Hearts = red blood cells, Sprinkles = platelets.



We also made edible blood (cocoa, food coloring & water).... no one ate it though as it was too "gross"



Time (and pictures) fly when you are having fun!





Halo at the water park... it's nice because there are lots of slides that he can go on too.



Daxter getting ready to get soaked.





Some dry fun.





Some wet fun.



The kids leave these pictures every now and then. This is Halo's guy.



The boys assembled a life size skeleton.





Daxter puts together a puzzle cube from a book I got a yard sale for $1.



Too tired to play video games?????



Our garden.



Ratchet learned to swim this year! 3 sets of swimming lessons couldn't do it, but a week in the pool can.



Way to go Ratchet!







Would you believe me if I told you that we have a no jumping in the pool rule?




We had 4 nights of soccer a week this summer. This is Daxter on the field.



This is Daxter with his medals after his tournament.



Ratchet on the field.



Ratchet with his medal.



Ratchet being.... wll, being Ratchet.



Halo on the field. His picture with him and his medal also had the whole team and I did not have permission to show them on here.



Hmm... what can a 4 year old do 3 nights a week while his brothers play soccer?



He can have a snack!



Tasty!



All done!



This is what my boys do to entertain themselves. That's Daxter and Halo rolled up in pretzel together.



Halo found a monarch.



He's gonna be a rockstar.



Those bears crack me up.





Another park we went to had a petting zoo. More like a feeding zoo.. the animals were starving!







Just hanging around.



Daxter is actually pretty good at softball.... it even surprised him!

Well, I think that about does it...... our summer in a nutshell. All guilt is absolved... for now.

Keep giggling!