Neurons????

Yesterday, we ushered in a new system of the body,the nervous system! For those of you who don't know, science is very interesting to me but it's the one subject where I actually have to really TRY to understand it. Most subjects, ie: music, history, geography,art literature come rather easy to me but my boys love science so I really work hard at integrating it and bringing it to life...as challenging as that is for me. I"ve always thought about going into the medical field so I guess this could be good preparation. Anyways, awhile back, I found this amazing website http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/chmodel.html , it is called Neuroscience for kids. I am using a ton of their hands on experiments and ideas to full understand, at our little 6 and 4 year old levels, haha, the nervous system. I highly recommend this site as there are so many cool ways to discuss and talk about it. There are different activities that are applicable to different age groups as well. After the nervous system, we have the endocrine system and then I will be moving onto bees. Our character trait under all of this is Cooperation and we have been reading in the bible, daily, about unity, Paul in the bible as our example, as well as the verses about we are all One body but different parts. It's been a lot of fun and I am really surprised at how playdough, pipe cleaners, fake blood, etc. can all lead such lasting impressions and retention on my boys young minds.

Yesterday we created neurons with playdough and pipe cleaners. I was laughing at myself as I had to read, and reread, and reread again what axons do-the send messages and dendrites-receive, and who has the long arms-the axons and the short-dendrites...yes, I am learning this all too! but I guarantee you I won't forget it this time, hopefully not :) You never know, I may just be a spinal surgeon in the next 10 years? We then did an activity where we learned about how complex the sending and receiving messages are but making two columns with 10 dots per column and using different colored crayons to do a dot to dot from the first dot in the left column to all the other dots in the right and then repeat with the second dot in the left column to all the other dots in the right. Phew, I'm tired :)

We then finished up with language arts and called it a day as we went to a friend's house to make yummy caramel apples with all sorts of fun toppings. The boys covered theirs in coconut, chocolate chips, sprinkles and drizzled chocolate. Yummm! The kids then all played outside together while the mamas enjoyed some much needed company. What a great day!