Donating Our Bodies to Science

Or at least small parts of our bodies.

We heard in a sermon once that the salt that tears have in them dries and crystallizes into the form of a cross.

So we made a pact as a family: the next time somebody cried,

we were allowed to capture those tears on a slide and take a look at them.

The problem with that was, that everytime someone cried, as soon as the slide came rushing over to their cheek, they began to laugh and all tear flow stopped. LOL

So, it was very hard to capture tears.

We decided today after one of my little guys was almost done shedding tears, that we would do our best to get his tear on the slide.

It was compromised during the capture, but we were able to get a teensy bit of it on there.

We didn't wait for it to dry.

We just looked at it right away.

After his heart was broken, he was willing to donate his last tear.

Tear on slide

Wet tear

Then it was onto other things.

What does blood look like?

Reluctantly, I was willing to donate.

"This won't hurt a bit Mom."

Blood on slide

O- Blood

 "What else can we look at?"

The children chanted.

Well it just so happened that my youngest was having a psoriasis breakout.

We gently removed a piece and took a look.

Gently sliding a piece of psoriasis out of his hair

Psoriasis chunks on slide.  We weren't sure if we were going to be able to see them because of their thickness.

He had the honor of looking at it first, since it was his donation.

Psoriasis

Another shot of it (without the flash)

My oldest cheered, "I have a bit of skin that is coming off my finger.  Let's look at that!"

So we did. =)

Pretending that it hurts bad

My daughter also donated a hangnail.

What the skin looked like magnified at 400X.  It's blurry on the edges because it wasn't laying flat.

My daughter wanting to get in on the action donated her locks.

And I did too.  That way we could compare the look of curly hair with straight hair.

Don't worry, I actually didn't cut all that, just one strand.

The curly hair was flat looking.

The straight hair had more of a rounded edge.

DISCLAIMER:

No one was injured in today's science experiments.

All looks of terror were just the great acting abilities of me and my kiddos. :)

We LOVE our microscope.  So much fun!!

(Click on the pic below for link to Sonlight's Microscope website.)

1st Quarter Finished!

I honestly thought this was going to be my toughest year.

All Summer I dreaded the start of the 2012-2013 school year.

I worked all Summer on making a schedule for this year.

I admittedly changed it at least three times (probably more).

This is the year that I would teach K, 2nd, 4th & 5th.

With my oldest son having some learning disabilities,

I was extremely anxious about teaching a Kindergartner on top of it.

Not only that, I knew my 2nd grader still needed quite a bit of attention.

Anyway, blah blah blah, I thought for sure I was going to struggle something severe this year.

But I'm not.  We're not.

We just finished Day 47 and, we all still love it.

So what changed?

Well first off, my schedule.

I was trying the past 5 years to do way too much.

We weren't diving deep into subjects, because I was so concerned about checking off boxes on my schedule.

(If you use or have used Sonlight, you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

 The schedule I had finally come up with was so overwhelming I started to have a panic attack.

So the day before school started, I totally rearranged my schedule again!

And Wa-lah!  School bliss.

We combined Bible, Science, History & Geography.

We are also doing unit studies this year (my first time doing that).

Secondly, I talked to a veteran homeschooler.

She gave me some great tips and told me to Relax!

She often says that to me . . .

I just finally listened. =)

And thirdly,  I think because I'm more relaxed,

They're more relaxed.

Which makes for a great school day!

Do we still have those bad days?

Oh yeah!

But not nearly as many and they're much further apart.

So, in celebration of our 1st Quarter down the hatch,

Here are some pics of Quarter 1

2nd Grade - Practicing Handwriting Without Tears

2nd Grade - Reading The Beginner's Bible

5th Grade - Studying Maps & Globes in Geography

Kindergarten - Making a Y using Handwriting Without Tears

Kindergarten - Horizons Math

4th Grade - Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind

Everyday we do the Date & Weather.  So far in AL in the month of October there has been 10 out of 12 sunny days!

Very excited to have 33 days down the hatch!

Architecture . . .  ah-hum . . .  I mean math class.

Geography - States

They love playing with dominoes, whether it be building, adding, making chains or actually playing the game.

Some of my new LOVES this school year:

For Geography

The Maps & Globes Series

These workbooks are awesome!  My kids love them, plus they're easy to understand!

Sample from Book D

Sample from Book B

Sample from Book A

Sample from Book C

 Next is my Timeline.

I got this idea from a friend of mine.

LOVE IT!!

This way of doing it allows us to fit a lot of events in a small amount of space, plus it gives them an idea of where the event took place throughout history without flipping through the pages of a book or lining our entire schoolroom with a homemade paper timeline.

And last is the Book It! program from Pizza Hut.

My 5th grader is reading like he has never read before.

He wants that Pizza bad!!

Pizza Hut's Book It! Program was suggested to me from the same friend who gave me the timeline idea.  This program is great!  If you haven't signed up yet, I highly recommend it!!  Click here: Book It!