September Stories

 I just managed to retrieve my photos from my camera.  Here are a few September highlights:


Triathlon Training

Impromptu Watermelon Reconstruction

 

 

 
Pigeons having a dust bath in town

My Nephew Lorenzo's  Birthday on Blue Lagoon Island

Guava Canning

         

 


Visit from Ardastra Gardens to us :)

 

        

         

The Capture of a Snake!

Kidney Dissection

Last month Madison's assignment was to dissect a kidney.  Of course Marco could not resist joining in.  Who could? We purchased a beef kidney from the food store.  The next morning they could not wait to begin!

We finished by drawing a diagram of the kidney with all of the parts we could identify labeled.  A great homeschooling experiment!

Charcoal and Collage Creations

Last month was filled with art classes.  The children showed their understanding of the most recent book they read by illustrating a part of the story using the medium of charcoal.  They really enjoyed it and I was impressed by the results.

                              

The final pieces:

 Mine

 Marco - Age 12

Madison - Age 10

And we chose to make their final projects from their study of China the focus of a fabric collage they created.  Marco researched and wrote about Pandas in China, and Madison wrote a song using only five notes inspired by the pentatonic scale they use in China.  Her song was entitled Lotus Blossom and inspired her collage.

Presenting . . .

a certified Junior Open Water SCUBA diver -  Miss Madison Knowles!!!!

Yesterday Madison completed the final skill that had eluded her for so long - mask flooding and clearing - to become a certified SCUBA diver.

Ready to go!

SUCCESS!

Have a Heart?

Alas, we are still without a camera but I will not let that stop me from blogging any longer.

Picture this . . . a week old beef heart in the refrigerator . . . a towel spread on the floor (a cow heart is HUGE) . . . knives . . . microscope . . .  and two fascinated children.

The heart was slightly, shall we say, discolored from its wait in the fridge.  It also had a very interesting odor :)  We could not tell if the odor was due to age, or just to the fact that is was an organ.

We successfully, I think, identified all of the main parts of the heart.  The kids took turns describing the flow of blood into the right atrium through the vena cava, into the right ventricle and out through the pulmonary artery to the lungs to absorb oxygen, then back into the heart through the pulmonary veins into the left atrium, through to the left ventricle and out through the aorta to take oxygen to the rest of the body!  They also found some strange wiggly parts that turned out to be chordae tendinae and papillary muscles.  I can say with confidence that the kids will not forget this for quite awhile :)

They completed lab reports and have pieces of each part waiting for examination under the microscope!