Making Squishy, Squooshy Organs

What a great Part Two to our Anatomy Fun series on January 7th. Thanks to all the families who brought the tactile goodies. We had models with movable organs to kid-handle and a Lifesize Anatomy Man whose layers could be lifted up.

Back in October we made our own Blood with cheerios for the red blood cells, mini marshmallows for the white blood cells and candy sprinkles for the platelets. Today we learned how hard the heart works to move it all about the body to gift each and every cell with Oxygen – their lifesource.

Oxygen comes from where? One child pointed to the sky. Yes, the air has our Oxygen. We breath in deeply of oxygen and take it into our lungs. Our bloodcells load up on oxygen turning it bright red and they deliver the oxygen all over our body. Our skin, our eyes, our muscles, your little toe all require oxygen. And when it is delivered the same blood cell picks up the trash – mostly Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and carries that back to our lungs so we can breath that out. It happens all the time. Millions of times Every day.

And who loves our exhale of CO2? Yup, Trees and Plants do. They inhale CO2 and Exhale our lovely Oxygen! What a match we are! That is why we need the trees!

When the blue diaphragm gets pulled down the lung fill up

When the blue diaphragm gets pulled down the lungs fill up

When the diaphragm is pushed up, the pressure pushes all the CO2 air out of the lungs.

Everyone took a balloon and blew them up. What did they fill it up with? Air. What kind of air? Air with mostly Oxygen or CO2?

Now let’s look at what happens on the inside, where we can’t see!

Find your ribs and breath in. Feel what happens. Some bellies got bigger, our ribcage rises a bit. There is a muscle like a flat rubber drum head that lifts up and down when we breath and exhale – called the DIAPHRAGM. It does most of the work to fill our lungs and push the air out. I modified the lungs model from B.K. Hixson’s hilarious and inspiring science project book Anatomy Academy.

We asked lots of questions about the heart, lungs and also the liver before we went to make our Squishy, Squoosy Organs. We made them out of Gak which is the greatest science fun you can do in your home for kids of all ages. All you need is Elmer’s Glue, powder Borax (laundry whitener found in stores), water and a little food coloring.

Step 1: In a small bowl mix 2 cups of Glue and one and a half cups of warm water. Add some drops of food coloring here to get the color you want.

Step 2: In a different bowl dissolve one and a half tablespoons of Borax powder in one cup of HOT water.

Step 3: Combine the two containers and stir. This is where the magic happens when the Gak starts to solidify.

Be sure to discuss the magic of Chemical Reactions as your kiddos stir.

Step 4: Remember to store your gak in an airtight container to prevent it from drying out. And don’t play with it on rugs, carpets or car seats.

All the kids got to participate since we made three batches. One pink for making hearts, one yellow for making lungs and one brown for making the liver. The Liver is an amazing organ that has over 500 functions. Mostly it is in charge of cleaning what we take into the body after it is digested. It is a factory that converts this into that and regulates alot of stuff (hit the Liver link to get specific). The coolest fact I know about the liver is that even if you lost 90% of it, that one bit left is enough to regenerate the entire liver. This like lizards who can grow their entire tails back after it gets pulled off.

Kids made hearts and lungs and livers. The squishing was the most fun. One kid made a pink diaphragm and one organ looked just like a yellow intestines.

In order to better understand how the heart pumps or why we need oxygen so much, I had the kids all find their pulse. Some found it on their wrists, others on their neck and some their heart. As I slowly moved my arm like a clock to a silent count of 10, they counted how many beats they counted from their pulse. Then I released them to a high speed run for a 3 minutes (a great activity if your kids are getting too bored sitting down). Then upon return to the blanket, we all counted our beats again. Almost everyone got more beats this time, some almost double.

Why is that? Through questions and answers, I led them to the fact that their muscles, which power all their big and little moves, needed more oxygen to do all the work their brain was telling their bodies to do. So in order to get more oxygen, the decision was made to speed up the process of delivering more oxygen to the muscles. That means the heart had to pump faster. The lungs were taking in more air with more breaths or deeper breaths. They figured this one out fast!

After a lot of spirited FreePlay, we did one last Activity. Becoming Lifesize in Art. Kids helped kids and parents helped kids outline their body on a white piece of jumbo cloth. (Unlike over-sized paper, cloth can be easily folded and stored.) Then they filled it in with whatever they wanted to (ideally an organ or two). Take a look.