Apologia Human Anatomy Muscles and Malaria

First, malaria?  My biology class is finishing protists and had an assignment about protists to teach the elementary aged Anatomy class.  Today worked for the biology class to teach and share a hands-on activity complete with glitter.  Obviously, is lesson was well received.

So what did we do pertaining to Lesson 3, Muscles?  First, we studied different muscle tissue under the microscope and made sketches for our notes, making an effort to label the sketches.  The kids looked at cardiac, smooth and skeletal muscle slides.  (I've accumulated a nice collection from eBay and Amazon.  In fact, I just broke down and  bought 100 Basic Biology prepared microscope slides because the set of 25 slides had only a few anatomy slides.  I had bid on mitosis slides and protozoan slides successfully from eBay.  The set of 100 does have a corn tip slide with good shots of the mitosis.). No, this activity isn't in the text.  I think the kids benefit from experience with microscopes. We took a quiz on the parts of the microscope after a quick review.  (I take the younger kids to the hall outside the classroom to have them identify the parts orally and then help them spell the words and write the terms correctly.  We make a point to note the dates on their work for their portfolios.)

The kids played with my motion detector from Pasco using the Exploring Motion Graphs Sparkvue lab.  I showed them how to collect data, clear the runs, and angle the motion detector.  They rains, hopped, skipped, and did cartwheels to compare the graphs.  Why?  I want them to have exposure to the technology.  We can do more with the Sparkvue lab next time.  We collected the data for the Muscle fatigue lab.  We ran out of time and will review and graph the data next time.  I love this lab!  You need clothes pins and a timer.  Be sure to do at least three trials.  The kids worked in pairs, taking turns to collect data or act as timer to give their fingers a rest between trials.  Fun, right?  I had the kids paste the muscle transparencies into their notebooks for their personal persons and instructed them to color the muscles as home-work.  Next time, we'll do some comparisons, graph our lab data, and work on muscle identification.