Homeschool Wk. 1 Lesson Plan All About Your Body

***Disclaimer*** this is not how I schedule homeschool anymore. I really want to show how I have grown even after less than a year of homeschooling***
This post was saved from almost a year ago, and looking back at it makes me EXHAUSTED.
I spent a lot of time in the evenings preparing my lessons, finding websites, resources, etc etc...

That is in no way how I choose to homeschool now, but you can see where I began. (now back to the original post)


Hello !!  I'm sure I have mentioned this before, but for this post it needs to be repeated: I have an exceptionally smart little girl. Yep, that's it. Bet you thought it was going to be a bit more profound, huh? 

I point this out because this post is the first of 5 discussing how I homeschool. I have wanted to create this series long before I began keeping her home. Partly because I feel that I don't homeschool quite the same as other mommies and also because it is SO DIFFICULT to find curriculum to keep an exceptional student engaged. I especially find it difficult to locate curriculum that is void of religion. I do teach my daughter that religions exist, but not that one is true compared to others.  I began my planning (curriculum planning) a month before she started to stay home, which was May 1, 2012. It was tedious and fun and frustrating and liberating all at the same time. 

I certainly don't mean to discourage anyone, instead I'd like to do my part in helping other parents who have a smarty pants at home.  ALSO- I AM NOT AN EXPERT. I don't claim to be and don't want anyone to think otherwise. I'm just a mommy who wants to teach her child as best she can& I strive to give her lots of knowledge! I pull things from online, in books, and right out of my old noggin' to do with her. 

WK 1: All About Your Body

The first thing I like to do is brainstorm. I think of how to break the subject down into 4 parts, since monday is library day & we spend it getting books on our subject so I can sit Monday evening and go through the books for information that I think will be useful& write down a general lesson plan. Though, during the first weeks I hadn't started in with that and so there will be 5 days of lessons on some but not all of the themes. 

Day 1: Skeletal System

Day 2: Blood/Circulatory System

Day 3: Muscles

Day 4: Nerves

Day 5: Digestion

Day 1: Skeletal System 

Video- *found on youtube: School House Rock- Them not so dry bones.

Activity 1: we drew pictures on the blackboard of our bones, discussed what they are used for 1. Helping us stand and move (joints are for moving, straight bones help us stand) and for protection (Rib cage is to protect our heart and lungs while our head is to protect our brain- think of it as a helmet inside your head!)  

** also, we found an old barbie that was broken & drew where her bones would be on her body. She looked pretty scary but my 4 year old LOVED IT! 

Discussion Topics- 

What would we be like without bones?  We'd be floppy like bean bags. We couldn't run, walk, or stand up. 

What are our bones for? (answers above)

How many bones do we have? We are born with 300, but when we grow- some of our bones grow together. Mom has 206 bones, but your baby brother has 300 (he was only a few weeks old at the time). <---- I'm trying to "bring it home" by discussing US, OUR FAMILY and things that she knows& sees every day. 

Are our bones alive? YES! They can fix themselves when we get hurt. (here I discussed a story with her about when she was a year old and learning to walk. She tripped over the vacuum cord & broke her arm. But it isn't broken now is it? No, because your body healed itself.)  Also, inside your bone is where your blood is made, they are oh so busy those bones of ours!!

Vocabulary/Reading -

Each theme I try to take a few words that are short and simple for her to spell/sound out. 

You may choose simple words like  BONE or BODY .... or something more difficult depending on your child's abilities.   

In this lesson I also included SPANISH WORDS:

La Cabeza- Head

El ojo- Eye

La Boca- Mouth 

La Oreja- Ears

La Mano- Hand

La Pierna- Knee 

Day 2: Blood aka Cardiovascular System

Videos: Speak from the Heart *youtube

Books: "How does the Heart work? " AND "How do lungs work?" AND "Your Blood" by Anita Ganeri

Discussion: 

What do you know about blood? *** i didn't write her answer down, I just let the conversation take its course& you should too!

What is our blood for?

1. taking oxygen to different places in our body. 

2. Take Nutrients from food to our body. 

3. Fight infections- so we don't get sick. 

4. To keep us warm and cool us off. 

5. To take away waste- like carbon dioxide (to help explain carbon dioxide I discussed how our bodies need oxygen to survive, and that when he exhale- it is carbon dioxide, which is what plants need to survive. So, we help each other and need each other)

Activity 1: Look out the window and at the street. 

Our blood is like cars on a street. The street goes two ways (watch the cars drive each way) ... our blood also moves in two ways.  1. to our heart   2. away from our heart

Veins take the blood to our heart so it can get oxygen 

Arteries take the blood in our heart and they send it all over our body.

READING:

 BOOK: "How does the heart work?" -picked up at our local library

Why is our blood sometimes blue?

What turns your blood red?

One job our blood has is to give our bodies oxygen. Q: Do you know where your blood gets oxygen?? A: our lungs. the air. 

BOOK: "How do your lungs work?" -also from the local library

Q: What did you learn?

her A: We know our bodies need blood and oxygen to live. 

BOOK: Your Blood by Anita Ganeri (used page 10-12)

Our blood also helps us fight infections. When a virus get into our body, our blood fights it so we don't get sick. This can make us have a fever or other symptoms. That is your body fighting the disease, go you!

CLOSING: Because sometimes after all that info, you need to wrap it up and help it all make sense. 

Today we found out that our blood, heart, and lungs all work together to bring oxygen to our body- because we need oxygen to stay alive. Our blood does other jobs too, like bringing nutrients and keeping us from getting too hot or too cold.  

I also use my blackboard to illustrate the ideas we discuss: this is what my diagram looked like but here its been transferred to my notebook for later reference. 

Explanation:

Air can go in through our nose or mouth (have your child try breathing through both), then it goes into our lungs where it is picked up by our blood and taken into our heart for it to pump to our body. After our body uses the oxygen, it takes the blood with leftover carbon dioxide to our heart. It is pumped back to our lungs to drop off that carbon dioxide (for us to exhale) right back out through our mouth and nose. 

Day 3: Muscles

Discussion: 

Do you have strong muscles? 

Of course you do! If you didn't, your body wouldn't work quite right. Your muscles push the blood through your body. Your HEART, is a muscle. 

You have lots of muscles in your body, some of them you can move while others move by themselves. We don't have to make our heart work or our lungs either, they do it all by themselves. But those muscles won't help you jump. 

Other muscles we have to think to use, like our legs and arms. Our muscles and bones work together to move. 

Your face has muscles too! That is how we show people how we feel. 

Another muscle we use is our tongue. It helps us talk and eat. 

ACTIVITY 1: GET A MIRROR

make faces to test your muscles. watch yourself talk. look at your tongue. 

Our muscles need energy to work- and they get it from eating food. Do you remember what brings energy to our body? OUR BLOOD! - quickly review yesterdays lesson. 

ACTIVITY 2: GO OUTSIDE

The best way to discuss how our muscles work is by using them. Discuss how you run. Jump. Play. &stop to notice how your heart races when you have been moving a lot. That is your heart pumping blood to your body. Did you have to think to make it beat? NO!    Remember which muscles we need to think about moving and those we don't. Discuss how when you are tired, you breathe heavily to get more oxygen to your body. 

Day 4: Nerves// Why do we hurt?

Video: School House Rock- Telegraph Line *youtube

Books: "Brain, Nerves, and Senses" - from the local library

Discussion: 

How do we feel?

How can we tell the difference between a feather & the prick of a needle? 

We use our brain, our spinal cord, and our nerves. 

Our nerves run all over our body. That is how we can feel when someone is touching us. Our nerves in our body tell our brain how a touch feels- is it good? does it tickle? does it hurt? 

When our nerves feel something, they send a message to our spinal cord. It's job is to make sure our body and our brain get the messages to each other. It also tells our body to move quickly when we are hurt. 

FOR EXAMPLE: if we touch something that is hot, like the stove, we pull away. Our brain doesn't tell our finger to get away from the hot stove it's touching. Our spine does it first so we can move our finger quickly... it would take too long for it to send the message to our brain.  

Our spine tells our brain that we have gotten hurt after it tells our body to move. That way we can LEARN that the stove is hot and we can choose not to touch it again. It also tells our body to start fixing where we have gotten hurt. It will take a few days for your burn to heal, but our body is very smart! 

Activity 1: Use your sense of touch

Blindfold your child, have them touch objects, and describe how they feel. Encourage them to use descriptive words like bumpy, smooth, soft, hard, cold, fuzzy, etc. 

Can they guess what the object is? 

Day 5: Digestion

Video: 

The Magic School Bus- For Lunch *youtube <---Note, this is a longer video which I like to save for friday

Books: Everyone Poops

Discussion:

Digestion is how our body uses food to stay healthy. It starts with our nose.... Yep, our nose! -We smell food and our body gets hungry. MMMMMM, think of your favorite food and how good it smells. Smelling food tells our body to get ready to eat. Next is our mouth. We use our mouth, teeth, and tongue to chew and swallow our food. There is also saliva (or spit) inside our mouthes. It starts to break down our food while our teeth chew. 

Then, we swallow and our food goes down a tube in our throat called our esophagus. Take this time to give them a few marshmallows or whatever is handy, then they can get a good idea of how they chew& swallow. 

Once our food has been swallowed, it goes to our stomach where enzymes (a liquid) and our muscles move the food squishing it and breaking it down until it is a mush (like applesauce or oatmeal) 

It then goes into our small intestine, which takes out nutrients .... then it travels to the large intestine where water& more nutrients are taken out. 

Finally it comes out of our bottoms as poop. 

Activity 1:  Draw pictures that are good for your body in your
Science Journal (it is a small notebook she uses to record information, glue pictures, and write down any questions she thinks of during a unit.... among many other things).  <--- FUNNY FACT: I took the idea of a science journal from the show Sid The Science Kid on PBS because we LOVE watching that show. It gives Lily really good ideas for what she wants to learn about. 

Activity 2: Not so small intestine
pull out yarn/string. Measure 22 ft, the length of the small intestine. Talk about how food moves through the intestine- it's really long!! Then, ball it up and glue it to a skeleton picture. This is how something so big can fit inside our body.

This isn't the BEST picture
to use, but it works.