The City of Love

I decided to take a break from science and do a cultural lesson this week with Harper.  We are learning about Paris.  It helps that we have a Paris expert in our house.  We spent rainy Sunday listening to French music, making a French dessert and creating art!  We watched a few movies that took place in Paris - Ratatouille, Madeleine, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  I took the kids on a field trip to the closest thing Charlotte has to Paris, Amelie's Bakery.  The kids picked out yummy desserts and I pointed out a few iconic decorations.  After our field trip, the kids and I marveled in the sparking lights of our own Eiffel Tower.  We also enjoyed a yummy baguette. 

    

We started our lesson with a couple books about Paris.

   

No lesson about Paris is complete without berets.  

   

   

   

  

Harper helped me make madeleines.  

     

We made our own water lily art inspired by Monet.

   

For this water lily project, I was supposed to use food coloring on shaving cream.  We didn't have shaving cream so I used sour cream...

   

   

Once the madeleines were ready, we had an afternoon cafe break.  The kids drank milk with their cookies and Alex and I had espresso.

   

   

   

Our pretty Monet art!

   

   

Next, we channeled our inner Picasso for a self portrait project.

   

    

   

Harper and Ethan were super excited to go to Amelie's.  We had not been inside since before the pandemic.  Harper pointed out the Eiffel Tower statue outside.

      

  

Minds blown!

    

     

Harper picked a chocolate cake and pink and purple macaroons.  She didn't care what the macaroon flavor was, she just liked the colors.

  

Ethan picked out a chocolate eclair and a cotton candy flavored macaroon.

   

   

   

Macaroon cheers!

   

I can't wait to see the Eiffel Tower again in real life, but until then, I can be happy with this sparkling cardboard creation.  The kids loved it!  I made it out of office boxes, spray paint and Christmas lights.

   

    

    

   

Our last craft for Paris week was making stained glass window art to learn about Notre Dame.  After our craft, we watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Harper loved it!

    

   

Harper, Ethan and I ate this entire baguette.

Surgeon Harper

After a week of learning anatomy, I decided it was time for Harper to do her first cesarean section.  I made an abdomen out of mostly play doh and some Saran Wrap and fabric.  I had ordered mini babies and put them in clear balloons with water.  Harper had a great time and learned about the layers of the abdomen.  We filmed the surgery and it has been fun for me to re-play it and watch to Harper's excitement.  After the first surgery, I rotated the model to the other end, covered up the old incision with blue towels, added a new baby and we did it again (the pictures without gloves).

    

  All ready to begin!  She wanted to wear her Ruth Bader Ginsburg shirt for good luck.

   

    

We used her play kitchen knife for our scalpel.

   

Under the skin was yellow colored fat and beneath that was white fascia.  I used a square of fabric for the fascia so it would be tougher than play doh.

  

We cut the fascia out laterally on both sides.

   

Then we used our hands to spread the muscles out laterally.  I didn't get a picture of the rectus muscles before we moved them.  Underneath the muscles was a thin layer of peritoneum made from Saran Wrap.  We made a small hole in it with our scissors and bluntly extended the incision.

     

The uterus was made from pink play doh.

   

Harper used her scalpel to incise the uterus, being careful not to cut the baby.

   

I retracted the maternal tissues as a good assistant so Dr. Harper could see.

   

Once the uterine myotomy was made, we could see the baby in the amniotic sac.

  

We ruptured the membranes and Harper was able to deliver the baby!

   

A view inside the uterus!

   

It was a girl!

Body Language

We have been learning a little about the body this week.  It is hard for me not to go into too much detail and to adjust my expectations for a five year old's attention span, but it has been fun planning the activities and teaching Harper my favorite subject.

      

One of my friends from medical school, Danielle, sent the kids this anatomy book for Christmas.  It has been the perfect resource for our lessons.

    

   

   

We made a peeing man to explore how what we eat and drink turns into what we urinate.

     

   

My tubes had a few leaks, but Harper *mostly* understood that the kidneys function to clean the blood and that the waste (urea) and water then travel through the ureters to the bladder which then stores the urine until it is time to pee through the urethra.

   

  

It was fun watching our yellow water run through the body and out the urethra! 

    

Next, we did a quick lesson on the composition of blood.  This book, A Drop of Blood, was fantastic! 

  

We learned about red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma.  When I went downstairs later in the night, someone had eaten the red and white blood cells off my board.

   

   

Blood!

  

Harper received this felt body for Christmas.  It helps keep each lesson in perspective location-wise.  

  

After spending much of my call night at the hospital creating this set of lungs and heart model, I was able to show Harper how our lungs move in response to the diaphragm and how the heart is a pump.

    

When the diaphragm moves down, the negative pressure in the chest cavity helps the lungs to expand with air.  When the diaphragm moves up, the air in the lungs is expelled.

   

Our heart pump moved blood from the atrium on the left to the ventricle in the middle and then out to either the body or lungs.

     

  

We learned a little about muscles and the three types (smooth, skeletal and cardiac).  We made a hand to practice muscle movements.

  

    

   

  

I went a little high school anatomy class on Harper and ordered a sheep heart from an online educational store for part of our heart lesson.  It was actually really cool and she did a great job!  The only part she did not like was the formaldehyde smell.  We have a great anatomy resource from Aunt Chris and Uncle Paul that we saved and pull out to read every now and then.  It had great learning points on the heart.

   

Gowned and gloved!

   

The heart came with dissection tools so I could point out things like the aorta and pulmonary vessels.  She's not going to remember any of the specifics, but Harper knows the heart is a muscular pump that moves blood.

       

  

We could see the chordae tendinae, papillary muscles and valves!