New Unit in Science!

After a nice three day weekend, I am ready to get back to school tomorrow!  I am kind of excited because we are starting a new unit in science. We are going to be studying the human body for the next 10 weeks! I have so many books on my desk right now about the human body, so many projects we can do, so many that I know we won't be able to do everything!!

We are going to be working through this book.



It is another Usborne book and of course!

Tomorrow we start with a page talking about cells, the different cell shapes, how cells make up our body parts, how those body parts make our systems!! Wow! All that in one day!

Of course, I could find something hands on to do with each of those topics, but I decided to focus in on cells tomorrow.  Last year when we studied the human body, we made jello and then found candy to represent the parts of a cell and it did not work out so well!

This year, we are not going to make an edible cell, but we are going to simplify it some more.  I copied off a diagram of a cell off of enchantedlearning.com, along with definitions of each part. After we talk about these, we are going to make our own diagrams, but on construction paper! Here is my goal:

http://sayitrahshay.com/tbccrafters-go-nuclear/

I am going to set the girls up in the play room where all the craft supplies are. I will help them draw out a cell, but then let them figure out themselves what craft supplies they would like to use to represent the different cell parts.  Hopefully it will look like the one on the website!

This will probably take awhile!

I would also like to go over the different systems in the body, but I may need to do that on Tuesday! Luckily, we have been spreading science out across two weeks, so I can add another short project if I want on one of those extra days!

Another goal I have with this unit is to have a lifesize model of themselves. I found a roll of white paper today at Michaels that is big enough that we can trace their bodies onto. When this is done, I want to hang it up on their doors and then as we study parts of the body, we can add them onto ourselves.  Make sense? I am even going to let Christian participate in this! (I found a couple of books at the homeschooling convention of body parts that I can just copy and then they can glue it on their bodies.)

Like I said, so many projects, not near enough time! And we are only going to get about two or three weeks into our body unit when we are going to break for summer!