Learning About Cells with Oak Meadow

Bug is loving Oak Meadow grade six. One of the best things about the program (the best thing, if you ask him) is the fact that the lessons are never the same thing twice. He’s never stuck just reading, and writing, and reading and writing. There is always something fun and creative for him to do, should he choose to have a little fun.

What kid is going to choose to NOT have fun?

His daily lessons always start the same way- Bug opens up his books and checks out what he’s learning that day. He reads the content, and anxiously gets to the part where he gets to choose the activity he is going to do. In this level, most lessons include a handful of options- there is a section with writing assignments, and other typical lessons, and then there is a second section with hands-on extension activities.

Bug lives for these activities. Let’s face it- he’s a typical ten-year-old boy. He doesn’t love the idea of sitting and reading and writing. But he loves anything creative, anything messy, and anything that involves food.

Imagine his excitement when today’s science lesson included a cooking activity! For this lesson, he put together models of plant and animal cells out of jello and other tasty treats.

For this model, he selected items to stick in the jello to represent various elements of the cell. As per the curriculum’s suggestion, he placed the animal cell in a baggy, to show how the cell membrane was flexible, and the plant cell in a rigid container. The big marshmallow is the nucleus, and he colored smaller marshmallow pieces green to represent chloroplasts. There are orange slices as mitochondria, and raisin ribosomes, and almonds for lysosomes.

He did a wonderful job putting this project together. Tomorrow, he’ll pull out the lap book elements I put together last year for a little extra work on the parts of a cell . . . and then I’ll let him eat the project!If you have a child who thrives on creative activities, I hope you check out Oak Meadow-

If you have a child who thrives on creative activities, I hope you check out Oak Meadow. As we move into the middle grades, I am thrilled to have a program that is child-friendly and encourages a love of learning. There are so many ideas in the curriculum, from crafts to experiments, and plenty of ways for Bug to follow rabbit trails and explore topics. It lights a fire, and encourages a love of learning. Check it out!