There are those we see as the REAL bloggers, the REAL moms, the REAL homeschoolers. I am not one of those. I am not the elite, but I am pretty proud of myself right now.
Saturday we went apple picking. While we were riding the wagon, Caitlyn leaned over and asked if we could study the digestive system and learn why her tummy rumbles. Absolutely, so I set out to find ways to make it relevant and understandable.
First I headed to youtube and found some videos to intro the thought. I started with a fun Winnie the Pooh video singing about the rumbly in his tumbly, here’s a pin for it, then used a quick intro from the Arizona Science Center. We then headed to Wonderopolis for an overview of why the stomach growls.
But what kind of homeschooler would I be if there wasn’t a hands-on experiment? For that, I headed to Teachers Pay Teachers and found a messy, but fun hands-on.
I dyed noodles black last night with this recipe, again from Pinterest. It was as messy as you might imagine. I don’t know how to use black food coloring without making a mess of myself.
I bought some bananas and drug out my blender. And we were off.
First we needed to eat our food, so we broke the banana in pieces put it in the blender.
Supplies are one banana, a section of silk stocking or nylon. Has to be open at both ends, bowl and noodles dyed black. I started with the blender, but with just one banana, it was not very effective, so I ended up just mashing it myself.
We broke it into pieces to represent biting up the food.
Smash it up to represent chewing.
Put a couple black noodles in the section of nylon. Hold it closed, put in some banana. Mash it up and wring out fluids in the nylon to show the action of the intestine, then push it out the bottom, you know, show the “end product”.
We then referred back to our homeschool curriculum, Easy Peasy, to add our intestines to our bodies.
And of course, since the blender was out, we had to have smoothies.
