After about a week of exploring and reading our books on the human body, we finally delved into our studies more this week. I found many ideas from Refined Metals Academy.
Our Big Ideas:
1. We were created uniquely and with wisdom by God.
2. Our bodies are made up of parts that we can see (external) and parts we can't see (internal)
3. Each part has a specific function
4. We need to take care of our bodies by eating healthy foods, exercising, and getting plenty of rest.
5. Our 5 senses help us explore the world that God gave us.
The Five Senses:
We began our talk about the five senses by reading "My Five Senses" by Aliki. Then we had fun using our five senses!
touch: First, Lexy described how each of the textures felt on this Touch and Match board from Discount Supply. She used words such as: soft, bumpy, scratchy, hard, smooth, etc.
sight: She used the same board to match the circles to the correct spot on the board using her sense of sight.
hearing: We played a game using these Listen and Match wooden shakers from Discount Supply. We took turns shaking the boxes and listening to see if they were matches.
We also put on jingle bells and danced around the room to a Kindermusik cd. She loved the sound of the bells as we danced and skipped!
five senses art: We traced and cut a gingerbread man shape from sandpaper. She glued the gingerbread man onto a piece of paper. Then, she used a cinnamon stick to color the gingerbread man. Next, she decorated the gingerbread man with buttons and drew facial features onto him.
All five senses are covered in this little project! She tasted and smelled the cinnamon stick. As she colored with the cinnamon stick onto the rough sandpaper, she could hear the scratching sound. She saw the difference in color when she rubbed the cinnamon on the sandpaper. Lastly, she could feel the difference between the rough and smooth paper.
The Heart:
Our science experiment for the heart came from "Play and Learn about the Human Body." We took a balloon and filled it with water (colored red to look like blood). We placed a straw in the balloon to represent the aorta. Lexy lightly squeezed the balloon to represent the pumping that our hearts do. She saw how the pumping pushed the water out of the balloon, just as our heart pumps blood out and into our bodies. She really enjoyed this experiment and asked to do it several more times!
She learned that our hearts are muscles that grow as we get bigger. Our hearts are about the size of our fist.
She listened to Daddy's heart when he was relaxed.
Then, they both ran and jumped around for 1 minute. Afterwards, she listened to Daddy's heart again. She noticed that it was beating much faster. She also said that if felt as if her heart were going to pound out of her body.
She made a homemade stethoscope using a paper plate, aluminum foil, yarn, and one cup cut from an egg carton. She cut the inside from the paper plate and decorated it with stickers. 
Then, we covered the egg carton cup with aluminum foil and attached it to the plate using yarn. It turned out cute. She used it to listen to her stuffed animals' hearts.
She also used the stethoscope from her doctor's kit to listen to Josiah's heart. It actually looked really well!
She also learned that exercise is good for the heart!
lessons learned about the heart:
1. The heart is a muscle about the size of your fist
2. The heart pumps blood that carries oxygen throughout the body.
3. Blood travels through veins and arteries.
4. We can see our veins in our wrists and our arteries under our tongues.
5. Veins look blue and arteries look red.
6. Exercise is good for the heart.
Our Human Body Book List: These are the books that we've read or that I've got some ideas from for our unit.
Our Human Body Book List: These are the books that we've read or that I've got some ideas from for our unit.
1. The Busy Body Book by Lizzy Rockwell - A Kid's Guide to Fitness
2. Play and Find Out about the Human Body by Janice VanCleave's - Easy Experiments for Young Children - This is a great resource for simple experiments!
3. Why can't I Eat Just Candy? - by Ruth Thomson
4. Me and My Amazing Body by Joan Sweeney - This has been our favorite so far!
5. What's Inside? My Body?
6. The Human Body - Disney Learning
7. The Senses by John Gaskin
8. My Five Senses by Aliki
Next week we plan on covering the lungs and bones!
7 comments:
It looks like you all had a fun week. Your daughter appears to be headed to medical school
What an awesome week, and thanks for all the links. We read most of the books on your list, but not all of them. Anna is very fascinated by human body as well, and always wants to learn more. I really liked that heart experiment - we might try it here too.
Wow, what a great lesson.
Are those supplies (the MatchBoard and Listen& Match) also available through Montessori stores? Looks wonderful.
The running with daddy picture is adorable!! Isn't it fantastic when the whole family gets in on the fun? :-)
What a great week!!! Thanks for sharing all the info :)
Sun-Kissed Scholars - I borrowed the MatchBoard and Listen and Match from our library. I'm not sure if they're available through the MOntessori stores. Sorry that I couldn't help more!
what a great week. I love the homemade stethoscope.
everything looks so fun!
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