Is this not the cutest??? We finished up our last in a series of five co-ops for the SLC human body unit study today with a class on the brain and five senses. It's amazing that I worried about being able to fill up a month's worth of classes, but now it feels like we barely had time to touch on each topic.We started by learning about the different parts of the brain and the nervous system, then did an activity to show how the body and brain communicate. Each of the kids took on a role (nose, nerve, brain, spinal cord, hand) and helped relay a message from the nose to the brain ("A fly landed on my nose.") and from the brain to the hand ("Use your hand to shoo the fly away.") We wrapped up this section by making these adorable brain hats.
Next, we moved on to the five senses. We first identified each sense and did an activity to identify which sense(s) help us experience certain things (soft, blue, loud, etc.) Then, we broke up into groups and traveled through four activity stations:
- Touch: Here the kids explored five objects they couldn't see, making note of how the object felt and trying to guess what it was by touch alone.
- Sight: At this station, the kids learned how pupils react to light and determined their "near point" of vision.
- Hearing: After learning about the workings of the inner ear, we learned that the outer ear funnels sound into the ear. Could we hear better with bigger ears? Some of the kids thought so after they tried on a pair. They also learned how the ears help us stay balanced (and had some good fun getting dizzy).
- Taste/Smell: Our final station was a taste test to see how our senses of taste and smell are related. The kids sampled three foods - first by smell alone, next by taste alone and finally with smell and taste combined.
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