Anyhow, we just started studying the nervous system with the three younger ones. The writing in Apologia’s Exploring Creation series is written for kids! My oldest works on his science on his own! I remember many times sitting in the classrooms of different classes, like History, English or Science and thinking what are they saying here? Or we really discussed this yesterday? I obviously, wasn’t the class valedictorian but I made it work and made it through. I am the type of person who has to say it, read it, write it, dance it and then sing over and over to make some things stick. Thankfully it isn’t everything. I don’t know what the reasoning is as to what makes something stick and something else not but other than that is the way God wired my brain. I think it is amazing that God designed us to think differently, learn differently and like different things because of how interesting it makes the world. It is however, bothersome to me when it comes to learning. Nothing hurts more than to see your child struggle because they are not getting something. We have so many different learning styles and one teacher to teach it.
One of the benefits of homeschooling is tailoring your child’s education to specifically meet their needs. Our brick and mortar schools don’t have the time, money, resources or whatever to individualize each students education plan on a daily basis. They teach according to the majority not the individual. I try to look for things that my children need on an individual basis for the most part. We have some subjects that we have always done on a group basis, like history or science. I have found that we all learn better when there are hands on projects/activities that accompany our studies.
So as we started back we started with the Central Nervous System-The brain and spinal column. Of course there is a lot of information when it comes to most science programs, and studying human anatomy is no different. So we made brains out of playdough! As you can see, we made each part a different color. Now in explaining the functions of these parts my second grader may say “We are talking about the red part, right?” We have only been discussing this for 2 days so I think that the fact that she knows what part is being discusses is a great testament to the power of hands on activities! So here are the brains……
Then we made neurons as you can see below. Now you may have noticed that there are 4 brains and only 3 neurons. I made a brain to show the kiddos how to make it then I let them do the neurons on their own. The exciting part was that each of my kids could tell what the different parts were after just that lesson. Yep even my second grader! With her though it was just like the brain and she would say “the blue part or the green part”. I have to say that I think that is a lot for a second grader to take in for an hour lesson.
Hope you have enjoyed checking out our science!
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