Human Body Lapbook

Over the past week or so we have started doing the human body. I have bought a lapbook from HOAC. My youngest is steadily working through the lapbook but we are supplementing with lots of our own activities and experiments.

We started with the skeletal system, including joints and muscles. Please meet Boney Bob our skeleton below:

To begin with the children had to find the correct bones and make the labels for Boney Bob, then each day they had to put the labels on in the correct place. They have now just about mastered the bone names and where they should go. I think I'll leave it a week or so and then see if they can still remember...

We did an experiment to to do with bones and their calcium content:

http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/rubberbone.php

Then we moved onto the digestive system. We did a few simple experiments:

http://qldscienceteachers.tripod.com/junior/expt/biology_digestive.html

http://www.juliantrubin.com/fairprojects/medicine/digestivesystem.html and coloured in and labelled a diagram.
I also did the 'path of food being digested' as I wanted them to remember the process and the names, which they did, as it was totally gross!

I started off with the oesophogus (the first part of my mixer) and put bits of bread in it, this fell into the stomach (the main bowl) with water and vinegar (stomach acid) added to this were some rather colourful enzymes from the pancreas; the red one is carbohydrase, the yellow one lipase and the blue one protease. This got mixed up really well as it would in the stomach and then passed into the small intestine (a stocking with the toe cut off). Due to the mesh the molecules could be squeezed out just like the small intestine would do it, to enable the food to travel in the blood. The food bits were then pushed further along the stocking until it reached the large intestine. Once there it had a final squeeze getting even more water out and then it was released through the anus with a 'plop' into the jug (toilet bowl). Thanks to the food colouring enzymes it was a murky brown colour which the children thought was disgusting!

The above is of the children putting the food into the small intestine.

You can see the stomach clearly, with the three enzymes brightly coloured. I don't think they are this colour really but it made a lasting impression on the children.

Squeezing the food down the the small intestine into the large intestine. As you squeezed so the water and colourings and bits of squashed bread ran through your fingers... distgusting!

The end result in the jug (toilet).

So I think the human body project is going well so far.