Our week in science--heart dissection

This week we did a sheep's heart dissection. Tim took charge. Tom was able to stay and observe this time; I'm not sure why. Maybe a heart is less intrinsically gross than a brain or an eyeball. Amusingly, a sheep's heart seems to be significantly larger than it's brain,  if we go by the sheep's brain we dissected a month or two ago.

Tom probes an atrium and is impressed by how deep it is. 

Tim bisects the heart, then holds it open to show the kids the heartstrings, or chordae tendonae, which connect the papillary muscles to the mitral valve and the tricuspid valve. When the muscles contract, the valves open.

Tom jokes around with a fork. Mmmmm, delicious!

Creamed by Tom

At youth group last Thursday, it was whipped cream night. All the kids got to line up and throw cream pies at their adult leaders. Unbeknownst to me, children could select their parents for the pie-throwing. When I arrived to pick him up,  Tom was still in line to throw a pie. He kept on pointing at me and making throwing motions, but I didn't get the hint. When the surprise came, I submitted with reasonably good grace.

Tom didn't think of the camera until after I'd cleaned up a bit. 

Roman Libum Cakes, A Child's History of the World

A couple weeks ago in history, Tom learned the story of Romulus and Remus, and of the founding of Rome. To celebrate, we make Roman Libum cakes, which were used as offerings to household spirits in early Rome. The recipe included flour, egg, and ricotta cheese.

First, we rolled the dough into balls. 

Then, we covered it with a casserole dish (instead of the brick the ancient Romans used) and baked it in the oven. 

While we waited, Tom measured out the honey to pour into a baking dish.

After the cakes came out, we pressed a bay leaf to the bottom of each cake and soaked them in honey for 30 minutes. The result was excellent! Tom was sad he didn't have the appetite to eat them all. 

Our history of architecture class

So I changed up our fine arts class mid-year, changing from Story of the Orchestra, which wasn't holding our interest, to Calvert's History of Architecture. So far we have enjoyed it. We complete two lessons per week. The first lesson involves reading a chapter and answer discussion questions. The second one involves an art project. So far, the boys have drawn pyramids, created trilithons and built ziggurats out of sugar cubes. 

Here is a finished ziggurat. Each level had to be a perfect square, to represent the Babylonian devotion to mathematics, starting with 7 cubes on the bottom. So it would take 49 cubes for the base, then 36 cubes for the next row, then 25, and so on. After some fiddling, the boys realized that they could not simply move in one row as they built up; Tom built one that went from 7 by 7 directly to 5 by 5 before he realized this. 

Cow Eye dissection

This year we are doing Human Anatomy for science and one of the highlights has been the chance to do dissections. We dissected a sheep's brain a few months ago and grossed out our house cleaner, but failed to get any photos. We moved on from the brain & nervous system to the eye and snapped a single picture. Tom delicate stomach kept him in the next room, and Tim and I wrote off any future career in medicine. Sam sat next to me the whole time, but lacked the fine motor coordination to actually do any cutting, which was harder than it looked. The scalpel that came with the kit was not really up to the task; I really should have used one of my kitchen knives, but just didn't want to. So I sawed away with the scalpel and tried not to maul the eye too badly in the process.

Here is the eye after it has been cut in half. The bits on the left are from the thick cushion of fat swathing the eye. After it was opened the vitreous humor leaked out and we were able to examine the lens, which is the yellowish disc in the center. Sam and I both held it up to our eyes and against the newspaper to see how it magnified things. The iridescent part on the lower half is called the tapetum and is only in animal eyeballs. That surface reflects light back out through the eyeball at night and is the reason for the "glowing eyes" we see whenever we shine a flashlight in our dogs' faces at night. 

A Second Trip to Zoo Lights

The second time we went to the Tacoma Zoo, we combined a trip to see Zoo Lights with a Shark Tank Dive we'd given the boys as a Christmas present. The zoo allows four people to lower themselves into a cage in the South Pacific Aquarium for an hour with sixteen sharks. The boys got to see Nurse, Sandbar, Sand Tiger, Blacktip, and Wobbegong sharks.

The boys were fitted with dry suits, masks, and regulators. They also learned how to clear water out of their mask, how to descend comfortably, and how to signal underwater. 

The zoo diver made sure each person lined up on the side nearest the glass for pictures.

Here's Sam trying to relieve pressure in his ears.

Tom is giving a wave. He said that he could see us through the glass very clearly, which means that when you think a shark is looking at you through the glass there, you aren't kidding yourself. The sharks are very curious and come over to check out each new group of divers.

Then they open the door.

And the kids are allowed to peek out, one at a time.

The black and yellow stick at the top left corner is a prod the zoo diver would have used if any shark had actually tried to enter the cage. One shark did come right up, but immediately turned away after a gesture from the zoo diver. Needless to say, all of the sharks in the tank are nonaggressive. 

Jellyfish, Summer 2016

The waters of Puget Sound teem with jellyfish in the summertime. Here's a nice shot of Sam looking down at one.

Winter weather

Here are two shots of the beach, and one of the chickens dust bathing by the side of the house.

Christmas, 2016

We had a lovely, low-key Christmas. Here are pictures of the tree, a favorite gift, the boys doing what they do best, our conure, and Tim making the Christmas trifle.