How do we hEAR?

What's round, tiny and delicate, and vibrates like a...


Need more hints? If pressure builds up behind it, the Eustachian tubes help relieve the pressure. If the pressure gets too great...


Uh-oh! Hopefully that won't cause permanent damage!

We've been trying out our very first Konos unit study: ears and sound. We learned the parts of the ear: pinnae; auditory canal; eardrum, anvil, hammer and stirrup; semicircular canals; cochlea; and auditory nerves.


Then we attached the parts of our "ears" to this "brain." (Our patient is really hard-headed! Ha! Ha!) We used a variety of household stuff for the different parts. Playmobil toys worked well for the tiny bones, and of course we used shells for the cochlea.



Attaching the auditory nerves to the brain. The patient remained stony-faced through the entire procedure. (Sorry.)


And here is "Rocky" with his new ears, complete with earwax glands. (By the way, what should you never, ever do, kids? Stick something in your ear! You do NOT want a perforated eardrum!)



Sometimes ears don't work the way they should. Some people are born with ear problems. Sometimes we do things that damage our hearing, like listening to LOUD music. Sometimes kids get a lot of ear infections and need to have tiny tubes put in their eardrums. There are lots of images online if you want to see what they look like (surprisingly colorful!)

Actor C J Jones has some interesting things to say about being deaf. (Note: the h-word is used once.)




And this is a sweet and interesting video:




We checked out books about Helen Keller, Alexander Graham Bell, and Beethoven to read over the weekend. Next week we'll learn about how animals use sound waves to communicate.

We enjoyed learning about our ears. Hope you had a great week, too!