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

Spinal Cord model with egg carton and licorice

I found lots of ideas for spinal cord models (this one made with a pool noodle is cool, and I liked this one with gummy rings too), but since we still had licorice from our neuron models, and since I liked the idea of having the spinal cord be thick and tough, yet flexible (rather than just represented by a piece of string as it is in the models linked above), we settled on this egg carton/licorice model.

What you need:

An egg carton to cut up, for the vertebrae

Craft foam (or something kind of spongy), for the vertebral discs

Licorice, for the spinal cord

I chose to use egg carton sections because they really do look quite like vertebrae. We tried both ways: poking holes through the bottom of the egg carton section (Abe's was made like this) and poking holes through the side of the egg carton as shown above. I think I preferred the latter way just because of how it looked, but both ways are fine.

Then you just thread the vertebrae onto the spinal cord, alternating with the discs.

We really liked the way the licorice spinal cord allowed flexibility and movement of the spine. They were fun to play around with.