SCIENCE WEEK! THE HUMAN BODY! (TUESDAY)

Today we began digging deep into our scientific information! 

We read a text about the brain - e.g.

Then we discussed the new words we learnt, and used the text to help us figure out what those words meant. Next, Miss Ashley recorded these 'new words' on the whiteboard but did not record their meaning. We had to find that for ourselves by looking back at the tet.

Next, Miss Ashley showed us how to record our thinking in the template she had given them. A few students helped her write this.

Then, students went off and recorded their own thinking in their own words...

Miss Ashley loved that we started to put pictures in our presentations to help explain what we were talking about. She didn't tell us to do this, we just did it on their own! As we finished with their recording, we started reading about the next organ in small groups. This was about the stomach. We followed the same model - read, discuss, record new words, students independently record thinking in their own words. 

After lunch, we wanted to keep going, with some students requesting 'can we do kidneys next?', 'can we do lungs?'. After lunch, we read about the heart. 

While we were learning about the heart, Miss Ashley showed the students (in small groups) what the heart looks like when it really beats.  

This is an app called Anatomy 4D which I downloaded onto her phone. The app allows you to scan the picture of a heart and it brings up an animation on your screen (in a similar style to Snapchat filters or Pokemon Go). It shows the different parts of the heart, and you can turn on/off different parts (that blue circle in the corner of the screen) to highlight a particular feature. 

These are some screenshots Miss Ashley took off her phone - she emphasised the blue and red arteries, which indicate which way the blood is flowing (into or out of the heart) which was something our reading taught us about. 

We LOVED being able to really see it beat in real life (well, almost). Some of them even counted their pulse on their wrists (something I taught them to do yesterday) and said if their heartbeat was faster or slower than the one on the screen. Amazing! 

We had such RICH CONVERSATIONS about the three body parts we had learnt about, and made so many connections to the systems we talked about yesterday as well. It was an amazing day!

AND LOOK AT ALL THE WORDS WE LEARNT IN ONE DAY!

When Mrs Sharma came in during lunch, some kids were almost fighting to explain to her what borborygmi was! 

It was an awesome second day of our human body unit. It is so encouraging to see all the students so engaged with their learning and so eager to share it and learn even more!