Show & Tell: Adventures Week 22

Today we wrapped up Week 22 of Adventures.

We added two states to our map and notebook this week:  Illinois and Alabama.

We also took a peek at life in a covered wagon and learned what it was like to travel west by wagon train.  We always enjoy the stories from American Pioneers and Patriots; without a doubt, it has been one of the highlights of our history studies this year.  But there was an especially touching story this week about a baby that was found in an overturned wagon.  The parents were nowhere to be found, so the pioneers who found the baby took her to raise as their own because they didn't know if the parents would—or could—come back for her.

One of our activities was to make a quilt pattern out of construction paper.  Hannah has been wanting me to teach her to sew soooo badly, so I decided to get enough fabric for her to make a lap quilt.  Hopefully we can begin to work on it next week.

In Bible, we took a look at a new name for Jesus:  Head of the Body.  We talked about how the Body of Christ is made up of believers everywhere—not just people in our family or our church family, but people all over the world who have accepted Jesus as their Savior and are trusting Him alone to get to Heaven.  Then we talked about the way your head helps control your body, which is exactly what Jesus does for the Body of believers known as the Church.  We also read the story of Ezekiel and the dry bones that came to life and compared them to people whose souls are dried up and dead until they come to Jesus and He gives them life.

Science and Bible typically tie in together, and this week was no exception.  Because we are looking at Jesus as the Head of the Body, we began a unit on anatomy in science.  On Tuesday we read about several of the main organs (brain, lungs, heart, liver, stomach, and intestines) and got a close-up look at blood cells and the layers of the skin.  Then on Wednesday we read about the skeletal and muscular systems, and on Thursday we read about the digestive system.

In light of the Ezekiel passage we read during Bible, we decided to do some "bone" activities from a Magic School Bus kit we had at the house.

First we learned that if you take a healthy, solid bone and soak it in vinegar for a day or two, it will become pliable.  So we made sure to eat chicken one night so we would have some bones to experiment with!

We soaked them in vinegar for two days.

I made a video of Hannah taking the bones out of the jar, but I never in a million years expected her last line to crack me up like it did!  :D

Apparently we've mentioned a time or two that drinking milk gives your bones the calcium they need to be strong and healthy, so she didn't understand how a chicken could have strong bones if it didn't drink milk.  :D

We also used our Magic School Bus activity kit to examine how joints work.  First we looked at a ball and socket joint.

First we rolled up a thin piece of cardboard and attached a ping pong ball to the end of it. This served as a model of the end of the bone that slips into the socket.

Then we slid the ball end of the bone into the socket and moved it around to see the circular motion this type of joint allows.



Finally, we spread some oil in the socket and then replaced the bone to see how much more smoothly it moved with the lubricant versus without.  There was a slight change, but nothing like the difference our body would feel if we didn't have any synovial fluid in our joints!

 We also looked at a hinge joint and saw how the muscles contract to allow the joint to move.  It's kind of hard to tell from watching the video, but in the model there are two pieces of tubing, and one slides into the other as the knee bends.  This is to illustrate the muscle shortening, or contracting, as the knee bends.  And a little humor at the end of this one, too—this time from Camille.  :)

The kit came with a ginormous poster of the human body and stickers to add to it.  Here's Hannah adding stickers for the parts of the body we talked about this week.

We also enjoyed a few DVDs this week.  I purchased a set of the Moody Science DVDs last year, which was very much a splurge for us.  I'm so glad I did, though, because they not only have fantastic science but also a very God-honoring message!

The Red River of Life is about the vascular system.

The Wonder of You is about the skeletal system.

And this is one of my kids' all-time favorites!  They love The Magic School Bus!  :)

We were supposed to do an experiment to measure our lung capacity, but we didn't get around to that one this week.  Hopefully we'll knock it out next week and you can read about it then!  :)