Friday, March 6, 2015

Week 25

Another doozy of a week. This entire spring (if you can even call it that) has been crazy. And it's only going to get crazier!

Monday- Heart and lungs part of the fetal pig dissection

Tuesday- We had intended to open up the skulls of our pigs today and investigate the brains. Unfortunately, in 2nd period, 7/8 of the brains were mush. One group managed to get the skull open without cutting the membrane around the brain, so I decided to use that as an example and close up the dissection early. All other classes got to look and touch the brain, but not dissect.

I had this video I'd intended to show the kids next week after the mock STAAR. A word of warning:

I had not watched this video yet. It was an hour and a half long, and I had no time (this was a plan D, last-minute backup). If I had, I'd have edited out a few parts. There's a scene where a woman gives birth, and even though it was well done, the kids were a bit....shocked? They weren't expecting it (and neither was I). There's also a shot during the nursing section of a nipple leaking milk. While I'm all for normalizing the female body, birth, and nursing, I was afraid some parents might consider this a bit young. I did have one parent call the school to inquire, but my administration is very supportive so all is well.

Inside the living body

Wednesday- We spent some time completing the analysis questions of our lab packets and discussed the questions and answers as a class. I showed my kids a model of a lung because no one could really grasp the idea of breathing. Here's a video of how to create the model. I used the instructions out of my ScienceFusion lab book.

Model Lung

The kids found it fascinating. They couldn't understand that the chest cavity was essentially a vacuum and negative pressure caused the lungs to expand. A great moment once they got it!

We also continued the Living Body video from Tuesday

Thursday:
I was out this day, so I left them a Measuring up on the body systems.

Friday:
We took some notes on Homeostasis, and internal/external stimuli.
We had a surprise guest speaker today. Melvin Adams came during 3rd and 4th period and gave a lovely presentation. His friend (whose name I cannot remember) also spoke and rapped some inspiration for the upcoming STAAR. Very cool show.

Next week is going to be CRAZY CAKES.

Monday: mock STAAR
Tuesday: mock STAAR
Wednesday: Homeostasis lab
Thursday: Measuring up Internal/External Stimuli
Friday: Early Release Bill Nye!

And then spring break happens! Thank goodness too. We're all getting a little frustrated and overwhelmed.

Peace and love,
Ms. Kat

No comments:

Post a Comment