Scalpel! Check. Animal Puke! Check.

The year before last, our science curriculum suggested the kids dissect a sheep's brain. I wasn't sure how to acquire such an item, so I checked with my rad cousin Laura--a science teacher at a private school. She sent me a box full of formaldehyde fun . . . a frog, some worms, a brain, two eye balls, and four owl pellets--the real ones--so each Crew member could investigate their own. How cool is that?!

We bought the tray, the pins, the dissection kit, etc. off of the Amazonian website . . . and then stuck them on a shelf--because, really, how often is one in the "mood" to help four students cut up dead animals? Ummm, yeah, that wasn't at the top of my list--even though I know it is a great experience and I didn't mind it when I took Biology a million years ago . . . it's just kind of a process, you know?

So, when we were re-doing/re-organizing the garage, my dear husband says, "So I've had this box of brains and eyes and such on my tool shelf for awhile . . ." Ooops, right. I kind of, but not totally, forgot about that.

"We'll do it before school starts," I promised.

Well, today, was a "stay at home" day. They don't happen often, but we like them :) I decided last night that this stay at home day would also be a dissection day! Not something everyone plans as they're drifting off to sleep, I'm sure.

It seemed wise to do the project outside on our non-porous glass table. It also seemed wise to wait until the sun moved around to the other side of the house, so that neither we, nor the long-soaked critters had to risk the sun exposure such a project might entail if done any earlier in the day.

We started easy--owl pellets. They did not smell great. They did not look great. But they held great excitement . . . for Brennen! :) He was all over this dissection thing. You can tell by their various reactions to my *ease-in* to science beginner dissection for today.

"Let's keep doing this!"

"This smells DISGUSTING!"

"I wish the wind would stop blowing the fur around . . ."

"This is gross . . . but cool!!"

After determining we likely had the full skeletons of two mice/rodents and a vole (Gabby's paper blew away right as she got all the bones extracted from the fur mass . . . yeah, that was pretty gross . . . "Caelan, don't sit down, you've got a skull on your chair." Ew.), we moved on to the sheep's brain.

It was like Brennen had been doing this his whole life. The kid had not a second of queasy or hesitation; he hardly let me read the lessons/instructions from the internet--he just wanted to see what that dissection kit was made of :)

As you'll see in the pictures . . . Caelan, not so much ;) She was a good sport, she just didn't want to touch or smell any of what was going on. Watching her in the background is almost as entertaining as watching Brennen doing his future doctor thing--maybe?

Everyone is checking their brain page to find the parts . . . I went online to remind them what all the brain parts functions are . . . since we studied the nervous system approximately 18 months ago . . . :)

 

 Yes, they are poking the sheep in the eye . . . s . . .