Welcome to our homeschool biology lesson about cells! Being a nurse by profession, I have been eagerly awaiting our study of biology. This Apologia Anatomy and Physiology book is one that we will languish in, take our time over and, I’m sure, thoroughly enjoy! (I mean, who doesn’t like learning about themselves?). We treated ourselves this time and bought the note-book to go with our studies. The

Apologia Anatomy and Physiology Text Book
The first thing we did was read the chapter aloud. I did this over two or three sessions. I had the children narrate back to me what I had read. This is helpful first in ensuring that they listen and secondly making sure they heard and understood. At the end of each read aloud session I had them watch an episode of Newton’s workshop:
These were so worth the money we paid for them. They are a little old fashioned but are Christian in content and so very clear, helping the children understand sometimes complex subjects. And they were perfect for our little homeschool biology lesson on cells! Lillie, 9, after watching the DNA one, wanted to write an essay on genetics; she was so excited to understand why our family had different coloured hair and eye colour.
At the end of the chapter we went through the narration questions again, for revision. In each chapter there are ‘Try This!’ ideas, all of which we attempted. There are many things included in the notebook: we do love the lap book pieces, and their succinctness is perfect for science.
More Hands on than Writing
We do A LOT of writing for our history studies. For science, understanding and application is more important. So I tend to go overboard with hands on activities, reinforcing their knowledge and understanding that way, and go underboard with writing activities!
Homeschool Biology: Making a Human Cell Model
- An Edible Cell
For our reinforcement activities, we started by making our own edible cell. Now let me tell you, anything remotely edible is a huge hit in this household!







- A Plastercene Cell
Next up we decided to make a model of our cell city using different coloured play dough( I can’t believe I’m 38 and get to have so much fun!!):

And with labels:

- Egg Model of a Cell
An egg is a simple version of a single cell with the yoke as the nucleus. We soaked two eggs in vinegar over 24 hrs, rinsed them and re-soaked for another 24 hrs and re-rinsed. Apologies for the photos, I really need to take a course in photography!



This dissolved the solid egg shell, leaving behind the cell membrane, enclosed around the ‘cytoplasm’ (egg white) and the ‘nucleus’ (yolk). We talked about the membrane being semi permeable, letting only certain substances through the pores. We then placed one egg in pure water and the other in heavily salted water and hypothesised about the results.


Colouring a Human Cell
We also did a bit of colouring in using this book:

And here are the finished sheets:

Looking at Cell Organelles Under a Microscope
To finish up our homeschool biology study on cells, I gave the children some cell organelle slides. We had a screened microscope that we were blessed to find at a charity shop, so we used that to look at the slides:



Consolidating their Cell Knowledge
I always, no matter what we study, beg steal or borrow (actually usually I just buy off Amazon!) lots of books to read for reinforcement. I think reading around a subject puts it in context of the bigger picture.

And just for a bit of fun and a taster of things to come I let them have a play with this set:
The Story of Science DVD
The very last thing we did was watch the bonus episode on the cell on my son’s ‘The Story of Science’ DVD:

This was a great homeschool biology lesson all about cells! We’re learning about bones next!
Wow, I really like how you’ve reinforced your study of one chapter with so many different resources. Awesome!
Thank you!
All the additional resources are great-thank you for all the ideas. Have you tried making a pizza cell? We made one recently and it was a great success.
We’re keeping the pizza and biscuit (in the dvd they make a huge biscuit cell) for revision whilst doing the other chapters. I saw your skeleton made with all the food- very cool!
I agree with you in that I hate to follow any curriculum. LOL We like the Biology coloring book, too. I bet your kids will remember the parts of a cell! You are as thorough with your science as you are with your history!
I have to admit I spend more time on history than science- just LOVE history!! That’s why I’m so chuffed to have found your blog!
I love the work you do with the kids. I wish I’d had so much fun at school. Reinforcing learning with practical activities is the way to go!
Thank you sweetheart!
I’m slowly pulling away from our bound curriculums too. I love our Apologia and our history ones, but I’m growing to dislike our history notebook.
I’m with you on loving the Apologia one (at least the Junior, haven’t seen the older one) because it’s rather freeform in what they ask you to fill out.
I love the play dough cells and all of your different ideas.
Thanks for linking up to Science Sunday!
My pleasure, Thank you for having me!
The jelly cells are AWESOME! I would love for you to add this to my Mom’s Library Link-up!
http://heymommychocolatemilk.blogspot.com/2012/10/moms-library-link-up-3-for-me.html
Thanks and Be Blessed,
Julie
It’s done, thanks for inviting me and for the lovely comment!
What an amazing study! I am so excited to teach Anatomy. We already do some reading about the major organs of the body, but it would be awesome to have a microscope! It makes me want to do a lesson tomorrow. Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library.
Thanks so much for visiting. I must say anatomy is by far my favourite science subject taught so far!
What a wonderful, hands-on FUN study!!! I want to go to your school =-)
I shared it with my Facebook readers here:https://www.facebook.com/LivingLifeIntentionally
Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Have a great weeke,
Beth =-)
Thanks Beth, that’s kind of you!
Wow, what great ideas, I love the jelly cell.
Thanks for linking to Science Sparks.
Thanks Emma!