We reached the chapter Superman’s been waiting for all year long: the COW chapter. Okay, the entire chapter isn’t about cows, but enough of it was to make him happy.
After reading the text, I don’t think the kids quite understood how does a cow’s stomach work, so we set about answering that question.
So, I set up the card table downstairs, dug out the glitter glue, and proceeded to answer the question: how does a cow’s stomach work?
First I drew up for cows with their digestive system, if I’d planned further ahead than say 2 minutes (see my post on my planning style at The Homeschool Village), I would have drawn one and then scanned it to share with ya’ll, in all it’s awesome quality…… That didn’t happen. Then the kids happily colored the non-digestive system parts.
Then we colored and labeled the different chamber’s of the cow’s stomach. I had to restrain the kids from coloring more than I did. You’ll see why it was necessary in a moment.
Then we got to glitter-gluing the steps involved. We ran out of room in the esophagus as the glitter glue was a bit wider than we planned, and we couldn’t fit all the times the food went up and down.
And here’s the end result. The cow chews the food and swallows it. There it passes through the first and second chambers before heading back up to be chewed on some more.
Then the cow swallows the grass again (called cud once it’s been chewed and swallowed). The cud passes through the third and fourth chambers to finish digesting. It’s hard to tell, but there are actually 3 separate lines going through the esophagus as the food would pass back and forth.
Finally the fully digested food heads down into the intestines where the food is absorbed. The kids were quite fascinated to learn that the food travels through the intestines and whatever is left becomes poop. Yeah, so that little bit you see at the bottom there is Superman adding poop from his cow…….
Fell free to say “ewwwwww” I certainly did.
And that is our lesson on: how does a cow’s stomach work.
But, I was also amused because all of the lines on his cow are blood vessels. I guess I better start organizing my anatomy board……..
Let’s see what others did this week:
Each week I’m spotlighting a few posts that were shared previously. Many posts get linked up later in the week and they don’t always get as many clicks as they deserve, so I’m trying to spotlight a few every week.
Life with Moore Babies shared a fun pumpkin growing experiment. I am SOOOOO doing this when we hit botany, or maybe sooner.
Stacy Sews and Schools shared a great collection of bird resources, there’s books to get, lapbooks and notebooking pages to print out and so much more.
Mum makes lists shared 50 things to put in a science kit (most of which are in your pantry).
<div align="center"><a href="http://adventuresinmommydom.org/category/science-sunday/" title="Science Sunday"><img src="http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g344/Ticia1/AiMScienceSundaycopy.jpg" alt="Science Sunday" style="border:none;" /></a></div>