Biology Lab: Flowers

With all the winter weather getting us down lately, it was nice to start a biology unit on plants and flowers recently. Ben continues to work from the Miller-Levine (dragonfly) Biology text, while Will is reading from The Encyclopedia of Nature.  Charlie continues to love REAL Science Odyssey Life.

 I stopped at the florist the other day and brought home a couple stems of lillies to brighten our dining room table, and to be our victims for a dissection lab.

They don't suspect a thing!

The Horror!

Here's a totally fake-y photo of my darling home schooled children, happily enjoying the hell out of looking at the reproductive structures of a flower.

While the older boys did some drawing and labeling of flower parts, Charlie colored in a diagram from his science program (RSO).

And then came the looking through the microscope at the pollen.  

 And here's what we saw...

120x

400x

I love looking at things under the microscope, and spend far longer than the boys, just sitting there and gazing at...stuff.  I find it fascinating.  Looking forward to any signs of actual spring here, so maybe I can collect more things to look at!

Stand Back! We're Doing Science!

Finally! I have started biology for both the older boys. 

This year Ben will be using the Miller-Levine biology text along with the Kolbe Academy lesson plans to keep us on track.  There are some extra helps/activities at Biology Corner correlated to Miller Levine as well.

Labs however, will come from The Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments.  This is a fantastic resource for labs, and the author even correlates labs to chapters of the most popular biology texts.  Score!

William will be working on the Elemental Science Biology for the Logic stage curriculum.  I'm not going to try to hard to match up the boys' lesson topics, but hope to fold Will in if there is a particularly interesting lab that Ben is working on.

Today though, to get the ball rolling, we spent a long, enjoyable time learning how to use our microscope. 

This page at Biology Corner was particularly helpful in making sure we hit the highlights, as was this PDF worksheet.

The boys learned the parts of the microscope and their functions, how to make a wet mount slide, and how to stain a specimen.   

Everyone also enjoyed looking at specimens of their own cheek cells.

The boys really enjoyed this, and even I learned a thing or two. We're definitely looking forward to using the microscope for more investigations and labs throughout the year.