This week we have been looking at the biology book.  We started out with the whole origin of life, and started the week working on the various kingdoms, Monera, Fungi, Protista, Animalia and Plantae.  The kids cut out pictures to go in the various groups and wrote their Latin names beside them, when they could find them!  We then talked about how the Latin’s were great scientists and that is probably why we still use that language universally today. 

Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.  That is the basic make up of every living thing.  Each category builds on the one before it until you get down to a specific species, the smallest group we studied...of course, now there are sub-species etc...but science is always changing, so we just went with this as a standard.

Today we covered cells...lots and lots of cells.  First, they learned there are only two types:  Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic.  Prokaryotic cells don’t have a nucleus.  Eukaryotic cells have a nucleus.  You are made up of Eukaryotic cells.  First, they drew a picture of a Prokaryotic cell.  Caden doesn’t do anything without adding a skull and crossbones these days.  I know, that was pretty random, but still true.  Next, we moved on to Eukaryotic cells, namely plant cells and animal cells, and the difference between the two.  Difference?  Anyone? Anyone?  Plant cells have a cell wall, and chloroplast are the two main differences between plant and animal cells. 

Once we finished the plant cell, we moved to the animal cells.  They noticed the difference between the shapes of the cells as well.  We talked about how cells ‘know’ to become a heart, a liver, a fingernail…and then we talked about how species are different, but sometimes you can cross species (like when people get a pig valve put into their hearts) in spite of the fact that the cells are different. 

In the end, we added our cells around our kingdoms and made an entire wall of tape.  Well, tape and learning materials...why did I let them tape things themselves?  I mean really?  Look at all that tape.  I will probably have to repaint! 

All in all they ‘got it’ that cells are really, just small little factories that allow us to ‘be’...and they had fun smearing glue and using lots and lots of tape.