Ty, Ty the Science Guy!

This summer myself and a few other neighborhood moms have been trying to give our kids a few fun and educational activities to help keep their little brains active and interested. We've got to try to counteract the dreaded "summer slide," right?! So each Thursday afternoon we get together and one of us will arrange an activity for everyone. One of the activities we went and saw my friends animals and learned about taking care of animals. They have pigs (including a boar, sow and lots of little piglets!) pigeons, baby ducks and chicks, and dogs. Another activity was a literature group where they read and discussed a short story. We are also planning on doing an Entomology (bugs) lesson and possibly cooking lessons. All my boys are also taking an art class from one of the moms and they meet once a week for an hour and a half to do art. Yesterday it was our turn to provide the activity so I convinced our resident scientist to do a fun anatomy demonstration. We all met at his lab at the college and started out by talking about different types of cells (blood, skin, fat, muscles, brain,and bone) and looking at some of them under the microscopes. Then he showed them his human brains and answered all their great questions. He also showed them how our ears work by showing them on a big plastic model. Then he dissected a cow eye (squirting juices and all!) and talked about how our eyes work. It was a really interesting demonstration and I think the kids really liked it and learned a lot. I know I learned quite a few new things myself! I felt like our activity went really great and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for the rest of our summer activities! A big Thanks to Ty, Ty the Science Guy!