Well, it took all week, but our experiment finally finished up! On Sunday we ate fried chicken drumsticks for lunch and saved the bones. One bone we let dry out. The other, we put in vinegar. Vinegar dissolves calcium. As the week passed, the bone got softer and softer. Finally, on Friday, it was flexible enough to bend!
Nugget was fascinated by this, and carried the bones around the house for a while this afternoon.
Showing posts with label topic: human body. Show all posts
Showing posts with label topic: human body. Show all posts
Friday, September 10, 2010
Sept wk 1 day 4: Staying healthy
An hour and a half in the room today. We might have been able to stay more, but she was starting to tire out and we had visitors coming for messy preschool art fun.
Today's topic was keeping your body healthy. We talked about healthy foods and exercise. The topical activity was sorting food cards into sometimes foods and all the time foods, which was no problem for her -- we talk about that sort of thing all the time.
There was a new Practical Life activity -- transferring water with a sponge. I also had a semi-Sensorial activity to sort by size -- the cheaper version of this. She got two of the middle sizes mixed up, oddly enough. She also worked on tanagrams and was starting to show signs of tiring out. So she moved on to a new language activity, matching rhymes. It took a few cards for her to remember how rhyming worked (I realize now that we haven't done it in a while), but she was hitting all of them by the end.
Then, Nugget chose another language -- the Melissa and Doug See & Spell. We were hanging out together, working on this and chatting... I spelled a word off of the cards and we started talking about how you can lay out sounds in a word to write it. I knew she was starting to be able to hear sounds inside of words.... so I took a chance and pulled out the Moveable Alphabet.
We worked together on the first word, "mom". Then "dad", which she wanted to turn into "daddy". Then she just wanted to keep going. We ended up spelling out all of our family names.
Here you can see her working on "Liz". She insisted that she heard lots of "z"s.
Column 1: Miles ("miz"), Gramme ("grm"), Aunt Heidi ("iet hd"), Ken ("cn")
Column 2: Mom, Daddy ("dade"), "atle"
Column 3: Nana ("nen"), Pop-pop ("pppp"), Liz ("lzzzz"), Grandpa (I helped with this) Johnny ("jn")
Not seen: Pap Webb ("p wb")
She was definitely getting tired by the end (you can tell from her efforts), but she really wanted to write everyone's name. You can also tell that hearing vowels is still tricky for her. But what an amazing step! I'm just blown away! You could have knocked me over with a feather.
We've got a few day break before we start the Five Senses on Monday, but I'll probably pull out the Moveable Alphabet over the weekend to give her some more exposure to it.
Today's topic was keeping your body healthy. We talked about healthy foods and exercise. The topical activity was sorting food cards into sometimes foods and all the time foods, which was no problem for her -- we talk about that sort of thing all the time.
There was a new Practical Life activity -- transferring water with a sponge. I also had a semi-Sensorial activity to sort by size -- the cheaper version of this. She got two of the middle sizes mixed up, oddly enough. She also worked on tanagrams and was starting to show signs of tiring out. So she moved on to a new language activity, matching rhymes. It took a few cards for her to remember how rhyming worked (I realize now that we haven't done it in a while), but she was hitting all of them by the end.
Then, Nugget chose another language -- the Melissa and Doug See & Spell. We were hanging out together, working on this and chatting... I spelled a word off of the cards and we started talking about how you can lay out sounds in a word to write it. I knew she was starting to be able to hear sounds inside of words.... so I took a chance and pulled out the Moveable Alphabet.
We worked together on the first word, "mom". Then "dad", which she wanted to turn into "daddy". Then she just wanted to keep going. We ended up spelling out all of our family names.
Here you can see her working on "Liz". She insisted that she heard lots of "z"s.
Column 1: Miles ("miz"), Gramme ("grm"), Aunt Heidi ("iet hd"), Ken ("cn")
Column 2: Mom, Daddy ("dade"), "atle"
Column 3: Nana ("nen"), Pop-pop ("pppp"), Liz ("lzzzz"), Grandpa (I helped with this) Johnny ("jn")
Not seen: Pap Webb ("p wb")
She was definitely getting tired by the end (you can tell from her efforts), but she really wanted to write everyone's name. You can also tell that hearing vowels is still tricky for her. But what an amazing step! I'm just blown away! You could have knocked me over with a feather.
We've got a few day break before we start the Five Senses on Monday, but I'll probably pull out the Moveable Alphabet over the weekend to give her some more exposure to it.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Sept wk 1 day 3: Digestion
Not as great a day today. Nugget wasn't in quite the right mood and Sprout was exhausted and wouldn't stop crying and go to sleep for DH (so my mind wasn't on the task at hand). Still, we covered everything I wanted to for digestion (books and experiment), did the organ location exercises, and got in a few Montessori and Montessori-like materials (pouring into 2 too-small containers, tanagrams) in the 45 minutes we spent.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Sept wk 1 day 2: Brain, heart, lungs
Another great day! We studied the brain, heart, and lungs, and spent an hour twenty in the room.
Again, we started out by reading books. Then we did a version of "Simon Says" (we used "my brain says") and the felt body organs. We blowed bubbles (well, I did, Nugget tried to) and listened to her heart with a stethoscope before and after she ran around. I demoed some three (well, four) part cards about the organs but it was way over her head and she blew it off. I'm not surprised; I'm going to simplify the cards a bit and try again tomorrow.
Then Nugget moved on to the typical Montessori work. I put out a lentil pouring activity which she dug in to, then tried the bead sorting (I simplified from yesterday) but didn't do it right.
She did puzzles, and when she started looking around, I suggested a Pink Tower game (she looks away, I remove one block and ask her where it was). Through our work with the Pink Tower, I'm certain she CAN do it, she just has more fun not doing it (the sly smile and "is that right?" when she put them in the wrong order).
She went back to the pouring and, for the first time, poured into two containers (tomorrow, I'm going to set out containers that are too small to fit all of the lentils). Then she sorted -- correctly, when I suggested that she was putting the animals (the beads are shaped like sea life) into their homes. She noticed that they were beads, and asked about threading them. The beads and holes are so small, the only way to do that was with a needle and thread. She worked so hard and so carefully! She threaded all 36 beads. I was very impressed with her work.
She finished up doing some sequencing work. Interesting note -- she'd been sequencing one of the stories -- a dad lifting a girl -- incorrectly. I'd thought last night to put stickers on the back so that she could check her work, but didn't. Today, in order to help her see her error, I asked her to tell me the story of each group she sequenced. And she wasn't wrong! Instead of seeing the story as "girl runs toward dad, dad starts to pick up girl, girl is in the air", she saw it as "girl runs toward dad, girl is up in the air, dad puts girl down". I'll totally give her credit for that answer -- it could be read that way! Another reason to love homeschooling. :)
Tomorrow -- digestion!
Again, we started out by reading books. Then we did a version of "Simon Says" (we used "my brain says") and the felt body organs. We blowed bubbles (well, I did, Nugget tried to) and listened to her heart with a stethoscope before and after she ran around. I demoed some three (well, four) part cards about the organs but it was way over her head and she blew it off. I'm not surprised; I'm going to simplify the cards a bit and try again tomorrow.
Then Nugget moved on to the typical Montessori work. I put out a lentil pouring activity which she dug in to, then tried the bead sorting (I simplified from yesterday) but didn't do it right.
She did puzzles, and when she started looking around, I suggested a Pink Tower game (she looks away, I remove one block and ask her where it was). Through our work with the Pink Tower, I'm certain she CAN do it, she just has more fun not doing it (the sly smile and "is that right?" when she put them in the wrong order).
She went back to the pouring and, for the first time, poured into two containers (tomorrow, I'm going to set out containers that are too small to fit all of the lentils). Then she sorted -- correctly, when I suggested that she was putting the animals (the beads are shaped like sea life) into their homes. She noticed that they were beads, and asked about threading them. The beads and holes are so small, the only way to do that was with a needle and thread. She worked so hard and so carefully! She threaded all 36 beads. I was very impressed with her work.
She finished up doing some sequencing work. Interesting note -- she'd been sequencing one of the stories -- a dad lifting a girl -- incorrectly. I'd thought last night to put stickers on the back so that she could check her work, but didn't. Today, in order to help her see her error, I asked her to tell me the story of each group she sequenced. And she wasn't wrong! Instead of seeing the story as "girl runs toward dad, dad starts to pick up girl, girl is in the air", she saw it as "girl runs toward dad, girl is up in the air, dad puts girl down". I'll totally give her credit for that answer -- it could be read that way! Another reason to love homeschooling. :)
Tomorrow -- digestion!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Sept wk 1 day 1: Bones and muscles
Our first day went well! We got started at 8:30am and stayed in the room for an hour. That's a great length, I think -- my eventual goal is 2 hours, but right now an hour is just fine. Today, I would have been happy with anything over 30 minutes. My husband was home to be able to hold on to Sprout, so I just had to leave once to nurse him.
I'm not taking many pictures while Nugget is working -- it's a big distraction for her. But I've got some pictures of our environment and materials.
This is our set-up. It's part of our master bedroom. I have one shelf for Practical Life, a couple for Sensorial, and one each for Language, Math, and the current topic. The shelves are pretty bare because I don't want to swamp her with a ton of stuff right off the bat.
This is our Practical Life. I have a sorting activity and flower arranging (a perpetual favorite). I spent a lot of time setting out an assortment of beads so that she could sort by either color or form -- I was interested to see which she would pick. But she poked at it, didn't find any matching pairs (nothing matches in both color and shape), and turned it into a straight transferring activity.
Current Sensorial materials. This will slowly grow as the days and weeks go on. She completely ignored them today, as is usual.
New Sensorial material to go along with "muscles" -- weighted containers. There are pairs of 3 different weights. Nugget did a great job with these -- she was able to pair, grade, and name (heavier, lighter).
Language. On the bottom is a Melissa and Doug activity, on the top are sequencing cards available for free from Montessori for Everyone. I chose to start with these because Nugget seems to have a hard time with picking the "first" letter when looking at a word. She often picks the last letter instead.
Our topical shelves. I have out some things to pick up and look at -- a paper mache skull and a remarkably nicely done skeleton from a Dollar Tree garland. (I'd like to highly recommend doing a unit on skulls around Halloween.) Behind those are the skeleton matching cards, and on the bottom is a skeleton puzzle she's had for a while but I tucked away so that it would feel new for this unit.
Here's a fun craft project -- my version is on the left, hers on the right.
We started out our time in the room with a silly song ("Dem Bones", and Nugget looked embarrassed for me) and then read some books about bones. Nugget then went right for the animal skeleton matching and did it perfectly -- even recognizing some skeletons without seeing the animal picture. I introduced the idea of "checking your work" for the first time, with stickers on the back, and she used it (before, she'd just matched the backs without attempting the activity).
She proceeded to do the craft, investigate the hands-on bones, try the sorting, and assemble the skeleton puzzle. Then there was a break to look through the "Visual Dictionary of the Skeleton" together (she loves books like this). Then back into the room for sequencing, flower arranging (and unarranging), and weighted containers. BACK to the "Visual Dictionary of the Skeleton", then she started to "play Pixar" on the bed, so I got her to straighten up the room and we called it a day at 9:30am.
Outside of the room, we've been soaking a chicken bone in vinegar (to dissolve the calcium and make it bendable) and looking at an x-ray of her metal-skeletoned Bullseye stuffed friend (gotta love having a family member in the health care industry!).
Back tomorrow for heart, lungs, and brain. I won't do such a detailed review every day; I've got enough on my plate just preparing for the next days! But I do want to track what she's up to, so there'll be SOMETHING here.
I'm not taking many pictures while Nugget is working -- it's a big distraction for her. But I've got some pictures of our environment and materials.
This is our set-up. It's part of our master bedroom. I have one shelf for Practical Life, a couple for Sensorial, and one each for Language, Math, and the current topic. The shelves are pretty bare because I don't want to swamp her with a ton of stuff right off the bat.
This is our Practical Life. I have a sorting activity and flower arranging (a perpetual favorite). I spent a lot of time setting out an assortment of beads so that she could sort by either color or form -- I was interested to see which she would pick. But she poked at it, didn't find any matching pairs (nothing matches in both color and shape), and turned it into a straight transferring activity.
Current Sensorial materials. This will slowly grow as the days and weeks go on. She completely ignored them today, as is usual.
New Sensorial material to go along with "muscles" -- weighted containers. There are pairs of 3 different weights. Nugget did a great job with these -- she was able to pair, grade, and name (heavier, lighter).
Language. On the bottom is a Melissa and Doug activity, on the top are sequencing cards available for free from Montessori for Everyone. I chose to start with these because Nugget seems to have a hard time with picking the "first" letter when looking at a word. She often picks the last letter instead.
Our topical shelves. I have out some things to pick up and look at -- a paper mache skull and a remarkably nicely done skeleton from a Dollar Tree garland. (I'd like to highly recommend doing a unit on skulls around Halloween.) Behind those are the skeleton matching cards, and on the bottom is a skeleton puzzle she's had for a while but I tucked away so that it would feel new for this unit.
Here's a fun craft project -- my version is on the left, hers on the right.
We started out our time in the room with a silly song ("Dem Bones", and Nugget looked embarrassed for me) and then read some books about bones. Nugget then went right for the animal skeleton matching and did it perfectly -- even recognizing some skeletons without seeing the animal picture. I introduced the idea of "checking your work" for the first time, with stickers on the back, and she used it (before, she'd just matched the backs without attempting the activity).
She proceeded to do the craft, investigate the hands-on bones, try the sorting, and assemble the skeleton puzzle. Then there was a break to look through the "Visual Dictionary of the Skeleton" together (she loves books like this). Then back into the room for sequencing, flower arranging (and unarranging), and weighted containers. BACK to the "Visual Dictionary of the Skeleton", then she started to "play Pixar" on the bed, so I got her to straighten up the room and we called it a day at 9:30am.
Outside of the room, we've been soaking a chicken bone in vinegar (to dissolve the calcium and make it bendable) and looking at an x-ray of her metal-skeletoned Bullseye stuffed friend (gotta love having a family member in the health care industry!).
Back tomorrow for heart, lungs, and brain. I won't do such a detailed review every day; I've got enough on my plate just preparing for the next days! But I do want to track what she's up to, so there'll be SOMETHING here.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Topic overview: Human body (September, wk 1)
Here's what I have planned, created, or checked out for this week. It's a lot; I don't know how much we'll get through, but we'll use what we can. In addition to this, I'll have a couple of Practical Life activities out, the basic Sensorial (Pink Tower, Cylinder Blocks), and some early literacy (sequencing).
Day 1: Bones and muscles
Day 1: Bones and muscles
- Skeleton puzzle
- Weighted containers to pair/sort (yogurt smoothie containers filled with sand & glue)
- Cards to match animal to skeleton (available on my Box -- see sidebar)
- Dissolve chicken bone in vinegar
- Glue uncooked pasta onto body outline to form "skeleton"
- (hopefully) an x-ray of her stuffed Bullseye with metal skeleton
- "Jessica's X-Ray", Pat Zonta
- "The Skeleton Inside You", Philip Balestrino
- "The Visual Dictionary of the Skeleton"
- "Funnybones", Janet and Allan Ahlberg
- "My Muscles", "My Bones", Carol Lindeen
- Appropriate felt organs on body cut-out
- Appropriate cards to match organ to location in body
- Blowing bubbles
- Simon says
- "My Brain", "My Heart", Carol Lindeen
- Digestion demonstration
- Appropriate felt organs
- Appropriate organ cards
- "My Stomach", Carol Lindeen
- "What Happens to a Hamburger", Paul Showers
- Hand washing demonstration (cover hands in cinnamon, demonstrate washing)
- Healthy/not healthy food cards
- Vegetable printing
- "My Amazing Body", Pat Thomas
- "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", Eric Carle
- "You Are What You Eat", Melvin Berger
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