Opeie's self guided learning over the last year or so has made our choice to continue home educating run smoothly, he has a genuine interest in learning about all sorts of things and we read so much throughout the week. Dinosaurs are still taking up a lot of our time and I'm learning just as much as he is (about all sorts of things). Did you know that animals with trunks are proboscidean? Well I didn't until recently when My clever little 4 year old told me.
Despite dinosaurs and large mammals being at the forefront of our play he has also taken a keen interest in science and the human anatomy. We were having a conversation one day about blood flowing around our body and he looked really excited and said 'daddy can we go to the library tomorrow and get some books about blood please?', I love seeing how excited he get about things, his passion for learning is contagious.
So we've been learning about all sorts and a few days back we were reading about joints, muscles and tendons from a book Opeie had chosen from the library. Which brought us on to a fun science activity. Firstly we drew around our hands and cut them out.
We then flattened some drinking straws and lay them along each finger marking the point where each joint was. We cut small triangle sections at each marking and attached them to each finger.
We then threaded string up each straw and attached the string to the tip of the finger. Then holding the palm of the hand between our thumb and forefinger we pulled the string, simulating the movement of all the joints on our own hands. It was a quick yet fun craft session which Opeie found really interesting.
I'm hoping that this new found love of science continues as i was loving all the experiments we did last year with Seth but he seemed to lose interest after a while (I'm really missing the lab we created in Seth's room too since we moved). I think its time now to get our lab coats at the ready and to dig out the microscope, beakers and chemicals so we can get properly stuck in to some science fun.
