I’m joining the “Yes! We Did Science!” Friday bloggers, as an incentive for everyone to do science more. To see other homeschoolers blogging about their Science Friday, click the image below.
We actually started this on Tuesday of this week to learn about the respiratory system. Using R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, we did a Lab Activity where we measured Satori’s breath after different activities, just like we did when we learned about the circulatory system.
We read a few books on respiration.
Satori filled out her breathing chart.
We compared it to our Circulatory Chart where we did the same activities. I now see I should’ve used the same colors, but you can see they aligned up for the most part.
Today (Friday) we did the second RSO Lab on respiration was to make a 10-foot Giant with four major parts: Nose to inhale/exhale, lungs, heart, and a foot for walking.
David was the Giant who inhaled and exhaled. Satori acted as a little red blood cell. She moved the red counters (oxygen) around, through the nose as Daddy inhaled, down the trachea, to the lung, to the heart, down to the foot, dropped off the red blood cell, picked up a blue disc (carbon dioxide), went back up to the heart, and to the lungs. Then the Giant exhaled, so the blue carbon dioxide went up the trachea tube, and out the nose. We did this cycle five times, so Satori got a great workout!
That was just a warmup!
Earlier today I ran across a free download on Ellen McHenry’s Basement Workshop page called the Circulation Game. The target age group is 8-14, but I knew Satori and our whole family would have fun with it. It took maybe an hour to print off on cardstock, tape the back together, color it with markers, make the spinner, and all the other little game pieces. Here it is all finished and on the floor! (You can click the image to see it larger.)
It combines many body systems – circulatory, respiration, digestive and even skeletal systems, and demonstrates how they all work together. Here is the game setup before we started, the Sugar & Protein (food) is in the intestines, and CO2 and waste are in the hands, feet, and head.
Satori and David were Team Orange and I was Team Green. Satori took a spin on our spinner. This was printed on cardstock, colored, laminated, and the arrow was fastened with a brad. It spun perfectly!
The number you land on specifies a move through the circulatory system, and with a 20 you can get pretty far. To generate your red blood cells, you start from your femur bone, as your bone marrow produces blood cells. From there, your red blood cell marker can go up to the lungs to pick up oxygen (O2), then off to either the feet/hands/head to drop off oxygen and pick up CO2, and then back to the lungs to drop off the CO2. You could also select a Sugar&Protein to travel to the feet/hands/head, drop off, pick up Waste, and then travel all the way to the Kidneys. All this time, you have to follow the arrows through your arteries and veins, making a fun twist through the heart’s aorta artery and Vena Cava vein.
The game was amazingly fun for the family! David and Satori won, by just a little. They got all the oxygen and food to the right places, and all the CO2 and Waste to the right places first. Here is how the game looked once we were all done.
