Practical and Applied Life Science

For Science this week, we began our Human Anatomy unit.  You have to start with the support structure, so we cut out paper sections of a skeleton, assembled it on poster board, and labeled the parts.  Seth hadn't realized before that the spine is made up of small individual vertebrae stacked on top of each other.

I had to shake my head, because he's seen our family chiropractor once a month since he was born.  I explained that when Dr. Bevis adjusts him, she's making sure all the vertebrae are "stacked neatly," like when he builds a block tower.  The structure is more stable if everything is aligned.  He immediately put this idea into practice:

subluxation, boo!

proper alignment, yay!

If that kid grows up to be a chiropractor, my life will be set.

We had an appointment later in the week, so we took their project in to show Dr. Bevis.

Dr. B and her well-adjusted patients

Why, That Little...

Gabriel just beat me at chess.  Twice.

The third time, I won, but only after he showed me where to checkmate him.

I WILL STUDY ONLINE LESSONS AND HAVE MY VENGEANCE.

*ahem*  I mean, good job, son!

Chess Club

One of the moms in our homeschool group arranged to have a professional chess coach give weekly lessons.  Today was our second meeting.  We're all delighted with how well it's going -- the kids are learning quickly and have displayed a surprising amount of focus and willingness to participate, without any pressure from the parents!  It's really quite idyllic.

Buckling Down

The rest of our textbooks finally arrived this week, so both boys are working a "full course load," as it were.  I'm getting some resistance, but I hope that will diminish as the routine becomes, well, routine.  So far, math is Seth's favorite subject, while Gabriel still loves history the best.  They're doing tremendously well.  We've set up a science lab journal and an art portfolio.  Monday's lab was identifying cell parts by examining a chicken egg, and the dog got to eat the egg when we were done.  Homeschooling is good for the whole family.

The microscope has stayed set up, which was really convenient when the exterminator came to evaluate our ant problem.  We popped a few of the beasts under a cover slide, and he was able to quickly identify the species.  Caribbean Crazy Ants are bad news, but that's another post for another blog.  :p

Current bedtime reading:  The Emerald City of Oz, by Frank Baum.  This is the sixth book in the Oz series that Rick has read to them -- the classics endure.