Functions of Our Skeleton

Monday (04/05/2009)

a) Measurement of Sprout
We compared the 3 containers. The “unpleasant” container was the shortest and seemed to be growing downwards like a hunched person.
The “pleasant” container surprised us with its beautiful purplish stem and nice leaves.
The natural plant grew the tallest but was very thin.
Would they be different in a few days time?
A few kids came forward to measure.
The “pleasant”was 6.5 cm. The “unpleasant” was 1.5 cm. The natural was 11.5 cm.

b) Skeleton and bones
Skeleton has 3 main functions. First function is to give shapes.
Teacher: What’s the second function?
Eugene: To protect our body.
Yes, to protect our organs. Skull protects our brain. Ribs protect our lungs. Skeleton also protect our liver, heart, stomach, intestines and also kidneys.

c) Moving our joints.
Some joints enable us to move around. Example: the neck, the wrists, the hip, the ankles and the arms.
Some can only move two-ways. Example: The elbows and also the knees and calves.
Experiment: We pasted 2 small boxes and lifted the boxes up and down. This is similar to our knees.
Teacher: Why does this happen?
Eugene: Because of the joints….. Teacher: But…how different?...Go
home and ask your family.

d) Tactics of throwing
We learnt a few: low throw and high throw. The kids learnt to throw with their arms and elbows.
We marched downstairs in 2 separate groups. Each threw the paper ball into the box.
We tried both tactics. Finally, the kids threw in the ball based on their comfortable style.