This Real Life

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Making Blood

For the past two weeks we have been learning about blood and today we tried our hand at making our own. We followed these instructions - http://www.education.com/activity/article/Components_Blood/

First we poured in our plasma (corn syrup)

Then we added our red blood cells

Next came the white blood cells so we could fight off infection

Finally we added the platelets so our blood would clot

Trying desperately to get our white blood cells to sink. Marshmallows didn't work so well.

The finished product.

The great books we have been reading.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

In the past 10 years I have been many things.

A full time working Mom.
A stay at home Mom.
A Mom of publicly schooled children.
A homeschool Mom.
A part time working out of the home Mom.
A work at home Mom.

I just finished reading a blog post that made homeschoolers sound like they are leaps and bounds better than those that do not homeschool. It really made me pause and contemplate why we as a society feel the need to think we are better than the next person?

I am currently working 2 part time jobs, one at home and one out of my home, as well as homeschooling my 3 children. I do not have what you would call a traditional lifestyle and I know many of you would look at me and think I am nuts but why does it have to be that way?

Everything that I have been and done has been because it's what was best for myself and my family. Isn't that why 99.9% of us make the difficult decisions and sacrifices we do? We are all in this together, why do we break each other down instead of supporting and building each other up? The world would be a very different place if we could just muster up a little compassion for and a little less judgement of the people in our lives that have chosen different paths than we have.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Heart Dissection

In science today we dissected a sheep heart. It was a really great learning tool (after getting past the freak out!) to be able to see the parts up close that we've been learning about for the past two weeks. Here are some pictures from our adventure. :)