Alpha

“What’s Inside Me” this week? OUR MUSCLES! We learned that our muscles are always helping us out, whether we tell them to or not. One of our most important muscles is our HEART! This incredible muscle keeps our blood pumping all day and all night. Sometimes our heart works extra hard…like when we exercise! We used a stethoscope to listen to our hearts before and after running. Alpha students noticed a HUGE difference in the amount of beats. Before the exercise, some students could barely hear the beat, but after it, it sounded like their hearts might jump out of […]

“What’s Inside Me” this week?… MY CIRCULATORY SYSTEM! This week, Alphas knew that when they get a scrape or cut, blood comes out – and it’s red, and dries up, and new skin forms under the scab. We learned that blood is made up of a lot of things, like… …Water! Blood is mostly made out of water… …and plasma that’s full of nutrients… …and platelets that mend our skin when we get scrapes and cuts… …and white blood cells to hunt down germs and bacteria… …and red blood cells that carry oxygen!!! We documented our model-building activity, too! We

A ferocious Dragon-Snowman-Robot! “What’s Inside Me” this week?…BONES! Alphas’ appreciation of their brains made them realize just how important it was to keep them safe and protected. Reeder even made a helmet for his Travel Buddy when he took it for a ride on his bike! We learned that our bodies come with some protection: bones. In our skeletal system, we have bones that protect and bones that provide structure. Protector bones are our “axial” bones because they are in line with the middle part of our body – like this axis the Earth spins on – Alphas pointed out

Our BRAIN is “What’s Inside Me” AGAIN this week… This week, we learned a lot about our neocortex! Alphas learned that one of the memories that stays with us the longest – stored in our temporal lobes – is our sense of smell. We told stories about a memory triggered by a scent from our sniffer-work. Alphas used their occipital lobes to sort objects by discrete attributes…and we used our frontal lobes to pay close attention to different tasks, like listening, or looking carefully! Alphas used their parietal lobes to adjust their body movements to be successful with a task!

Monday Gym offers a little sumpin’ for EVERYONE… Parents Please Note- No School on Monday! Our BRAIN is “What’s Inside Me” this week… This week, we explored some of the evolutionarily ancient parts of our brains: the parts that keep us alive, and parts that protect us and keep us safe, and the parts that help us learn. The medulla oblongata lives in the brainstem. Alphas knew that to stay alive, their bodies needed food, water, and most of all AIR. The medulla oblongata takes care of that, so our thinking-brain doesn’t have to remember to do those things! It