Motor and Sensory Neurons Body Tracing; Reflexes

I remember my brother Philip doing "body tracing" art in 5th grade---they just drew pictures of themselves wearing the clothes they were wearing, life-size. I thought it was SO cool. So, we decided to do the same here, but draw the internal view instead. :) We added two colors of yarn, one to represent the sensory nerve pathways going up toward the brain, and one to represent the motor nerve pathways coming back from the brain and spinal cord to direct muscle movement. We talked about interneurons and autonomic nerves too, but not everyone included those on his or her picture.

These pictures all turned out taller-than-life. Probably because the tracing was very, very difficult with such TICKLISH children. They couldn't hold still while being traced around (very gently, I might add!) to save their lives!

We also did some reaction time and reflex tests, as outlined in this video and this site, and of course we hit our knees with my drumsticks a lot, to test our reflexes. We love doing that.

Seb got really complicated with his. As you can see, his finger has just touched a candle flame, so he's got some reflex action going on as well.

Daisy was just happy to be included (I love how she drew her eyes and mouth on top of her brain)

Junie just got a picture, no nerve pathways. My goodness that drawing is alarming! Sam said it was because she colored her eyes yellow, but I think it has more to do with how I drew her face. *shudder*

Malachi "really just LOVES the digestive system" (his words) (??) and so wanted to include the autonomic nerves and some internal organs.

Seb + Seb

Neurotransmitters

I've always thought neurotransmitters were so cool---what a clever way to transmit electrical impulses across what is, essentially, a repeatedly-broken circuit, right? We watched the animations on this page

and read some good explanations about neurotransmitters here and the action potential here. We drew lots of diagrams (because my kids like diagrams).

Neuron Models with licorice and fruit leather, and Neural Connections drawing

Abe's neuron

There are so many ways to model a neuron, and I don't know that this one is particularly better than any other, except that I do like the way the myelin sheath fits neatly around the axon in this model. We used fruit leather for the soma, and the pull-apart type of licorice for the dendrites and axon. The regular Red Vines (they are hollow) allow the thin pull-apart licorice to be threaded through. Fun!

Ky's neuron

Daisy is so proud of hers!

Seb's neuron

I should add that the neurons aren't the only nerve cells worth talking about! One day when we were reviewing neurons, Malachi said, "Nobody appreciates the glia" [sad face]. It's true. Poor, poor glia. We made sure we appreciated them (and in fact, our model contains them---the myelin sheath is made by one type of glial cell).

Here's a good article about glia.

We also drew pictures like this, which I got the idea for . . . somewhere . . . ? It's to illustrate (in much-simplified form) the complexity of the neural network---how the chains of neurons aren't just nice neat pathways, in other words.