Science: Comparing Cells

This week was learning about cells.  We got a chance to learn what cells are and how they make up all things that are alive.  The first hands on experiment was observing a chicken's egg.  We looked at the different parts of an egg and labels with in our chart below.  It also gave us a chance to talk about why eggs have shells and the white part of the egg.  Hint, it's for protection.  After we finished our observation Green Bubbles gently poked the yolk of the egg and watched it break and spread out around the bowl.  We talked about how delicate it was and why it needed the protection.

For the second lab we got to compare animal and plant cells.  This one was fun and Green Bubbles really retained a lot of the differences such as shape and chloroplasts.  Or as Green Bubbles says, grapes!  We made jello to represent each cell.  The strawberry in both cells is the nucleolus and the grapes are, as mentioned above, chloroplasts.  I think the only reason Green Bubbles loved this one is because he loves jello.  The grapes through him off though and the animal cell was the first to be devoured. 

Bonus things we did this week?  Based on the recommendation we took out our book, Greg's Microscope, and started reading that.  I broke it up into three readings because of Green Bubbles attention span, about 15 pages each.  It's an easy read though and older children, or good readers, shouldn't have a problem reading this themselves!

We also watched an episode of Magic School Bus on netflix all about cells.  Season 4 episode 5 is called Goes Cellular.  This one explores skin cells and addresses how cells are alive, they need to eat, they divide, and how long it takes a skin cell to reach the surface of your skin.  It even talks about how your body is made up different types of cells such as blood, bone, and muscle, but the focus is totally on skin cells.  Green Bubbles loves Magic School Bus, but doesn't realize it until after I turn it on for him.  He always complains and says he doesn't like it, until it starts.  And then he begs to watch more episodes after it is over.  Every single time.  It makes me laugh.