How a Little Engine Could, and You Can Too

Have you found yourself tackling some difficult situations in your life? I assume that since you are a human like me there are some frustrating things in your life that require hard work to overcome. Often the hardest step of overcoming a challenge is the first one–getting the right mindset about your situation. The second hardest part is being consistent! Pushing ahead, day to day, faithfully following through, knowing you will eventually get where you are hoping to be. 

Our hero of the day is the Little Engine That Could. 

His first step was his mindset. 

It was, like the man on the moon, the first step that was a great leap beyond all others. Unlike his predecessors, Little Engine tackled his challenge with hope. The biggest difference between Little Engine and every other train was this mindset. 

I think I can. 

Next, he had to follow through. Push ahead, keep going, not give up, keep on keeping on! Little Engine maintained his hopeful mindset to push over the high mountain with his heaviest load. 

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. 

Faithful follow-through is a rare quality that produces good fruit. God’s faithfulness gives us hope and security in every circumstance. He is reliable, trustworthy, consistent, and always good. His faithfulness ensures that we will see His promises fulfilled at the end of our story. 

The Bible says that our faith is a substance; it’s the steam of our engine, the proof in the pudding, the life in our work.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

That faith in the living God compels us ahead, solidifying us to follow through to completion. Faith is an important part of being faithful. We hold onto truth, setting our eyes on a goal, and press forward because we know that the outcome is worth the effort. We can press on because we believe in what we are called to do, and that even though the road is hard, the outcome is worth our effort.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. 

As I step into homeschooling another year, I recognize my continual need for steady vision. When teaching 4 kids of different ages, interests, and needs, I can get overwhelmed with the task. It isn’t always easy. But I press ahead because I know that every little step is going to lead me to a full journey. I am not racing them to a finish line; I am guiding them to a full life, guarded by divine purpose and supported in love.

I am building a future.

That kind of work requires the right mindset, and the faithful follow-through. Without the mindset, I will give up before I see the progress. And without the follow-through, it doesn’t matter how great my ideas were, for they never grew feet to make a mark.

“Be faithful in small things, because it is in them that your strength lies.”
-Mother Teresa

Like a little engine, too small for its task, we can complete seemingly impossible tasks because of a God who is able to do beyond all that we ask or think. (Ephesians 3:20-21.)

Set your vision.

Push through.

As you push and huff and puff faithfully, enduring, you will see the other side of that mountain. 

I thought I could. I thought I could. I thought I could.

I created a vision casting worksheet to help you get a glimpse of where you are heading and how you want to get there. Check it out below!

Vision Casting Worksheet

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Botany Basics: Parts of a Flower

Flowers are such a beautiful area of study! They usually smell lovely, and they are designed to be gloriously beautiful. The flower’s petal serve to attract pollinators, who unknowingly enable plants to reproduce. As you learn the flower parts and their purpose, you can go outdoors, or even buy a bouquet, and see if you can identify the flower parts. Be forewarned, composite flowers such as dandelions, sunflowers and daisies are specially designed and may be very tricky to identify, as each petal is actually an individual flower, and their parts are sometimes labeled differently. Flowers like lilies, tulips, daffodils, and alstroemarias are great for dissection.
I’ve created a fun FREE PDF of visuals for identifying flower parts, and even a coloring page and assignment to solidify memorization. Get yours below. Enjoy discovering the marvelous beauty of flowers that make plant reproduction possible!

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Check out the full Life Science Workbook!

Jolie Canoli Life Science workbook is packed with playful illustrations, easy to understand science lessons, playful quizzes, and educational activities.  Perfect for elementary students studying Classification of Living Things, Biology and Botany. 

Anatomy: 4 Types of Tissues Explained for Kids

Discover the four types of tissues that form our entire body in this fun anatomy lesson for kids.

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PDF includes poster, lesson, quiz, and quiz key.

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Tissues are the Kleenex of your body where you can keep your boogers… … well, not exactly. But you can think of body tissue like the fabric of the body. Some of these tissues are hard (like bone), others squishy (like fat), and others like liquid (like blood). There are four types of tissues, and each does different things. The four types of tissues are connective, epithelial, muscle, and nerve.

Connective tissues support.

Epithelial tissues cover and protect.

Muscles enable movement, and

Nerve tissue controls and communicates.

CONNECTIVE

Connective tissues connect and provide support. Connective tissues are the most diverse tissue in your body, and it is found pretty much everywhere. Connective tissues help hold your organs together. Connective tissue, like blood, flows through your heart and delivers things throughout your body. Connective tissues like bones help you stand upright and provide structure for you to move. Connective tissues even insulate you from the cold and hold your skin together. Connective tissues include blood, bones, cartilage, fat, dense fibrous tissue, and loose connective tissue.

Fat

We sometimes think of fat as bad, and that is true if our body has too much of it. However, fat is essential for your body. Body fat, also called adipose, is used for storing energy and insulation. You would get cold very fast if you didn’t have fat cells. It also provides padding and cushions shocks so when you sit on your bottom it’s nice and comfy! You also use fat to power your muscles and cells throughout your body. More than half of your brain is made of fat! Fat helps provide structure and fluidity to its cells.

Bone, Cartilage, and Dense Fibrous

Connective tissues like bones and cartilage support and shape the body. Bone gives structure to your whole body and protects vital organs like your brain, heart, and lungs.

Dense fibrous tissues like ligaments and tendons bind these bones together and attach them  to muscles for movement. Ligaments connect bone to other bone, and tendons connect bone to muscle.

Cartilage found in joints like elbows, shoulders, and knees is called articular cartilage, and it allows touching bones to move easier. Articular cartilage is like smooth padding that reduces friction between bones. (Friction is when things rub together, creating tension and heat.) Cartilage is also found in your nose and ears, giving structure that can also bend. You can fold your ears and wiggle your nose because they are made of cartilage, which gives them a more pliable structure than bone. Ever heard the song “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” Without cartilage, your ears would hang low.

Blood

Blood is connective tissue that connects all systems of the body. For example, blood connects the digestive system to the other cells of the body, delivering food to cells. Blood also transports nutrients, oxygen, and waste.

I think of blood as a liquid, so it sounds weird to call it a tissue. However, blood has a matrix that ties all the cells together. The fluid part of blood, plasma, is its matrix, which ties the red and white blood cells together in one “tissue.”

Loose Connective Tissue

Loose connective tissue surrounds blood vessels and nerves, and helps hold organs together, including the skin. At the bottom of epithelial skin cells is a layer of tissue keeping those cells held together called the basement membrane, which is a type of loose connective tissue. Loose connective tissues can be found all over the body.

EPITHELIAL

Epithelial tissue organizes and orders the body parts and systems.  This tissue covers and protects, keeping things separate. It is also used for absorption, sensation, and secretion.

One example of epithelial tissue is our skin, and it covers and protects the entire body! Epithelial tissue forms boundaries, like separating each organ from one another, so the stomach acid doesn’t leak into your lungs. Some epithelial tissue won’t allow anything through it, and others will allow certain things to pass through or come out.

For example, our skin doesn’t allow our blood or organs to come out of our body, but it does allow sweat. And we even absorb things through our skin, but only small amounts, which is why you can’t feed your body by rolling in a pile of cheeseburgers.

There are several types of epithelial cells. They are named after their shapes: column, cuboidal cells that look like cubs, and squamous or scale-like. These cells can be simple in a single layer, or stacked in multiple layers. For example, stacked squamous cells provide a thicker barrier.

These different cells can be found in all sorts of different places in your body, protecting and deciding what is allowed to pass through it. For example, our small intestines further digest the food they receive from the stomach, and that food travels inside the small intestine. But the epithelial cells that line the small intestine also absorb and secrete, pushing nutrients out from its intestinal walls, delivering fats, sugars, and proteins to the bloodstream to be transported throughout the body.

MUSCLE

Muscle tissue has three kinds: skeletal, cardiac, and smooth. Muscles make things move. Muscles can make your bones move, or move your stomach to mix your food with gastric juices, or even pump the blood in your heart.

Skeletal

When I think of muscles, I usually think of skeletal muscles. These are the muscles we use to pick up things, go for a run, and show off our biceps. Your legs and arms have skeletal muscles. Skeletal muscles are voluntary, meaning you can decide when to move them.

It sounds funny to call these muscles skeletal because the skeleton is our bones. Though these muscles aren’t part of the skeleton, skeletal muscles are attached to the skeleton. Without bones, our muscles would be a big glob on the ground. The skeleton provides support for you to stand upright, and the skeletal muscles make those bones move!

Cardiac

Cardiac muscles are only found in your heart and have a unique branching shape. These muscles pump the blood in and out of your heart. Cardiac and smooth muscles are involuntary, meaning they move all on their own, even when you aren’t thinking about it. You wouldn’t want to think, “Now I need to make my heart beat” every moment of your life, would you? It’s very nice to have these muscles working without thinking about it.

Smooth

Smooth muscles are found in organs like your stomach. They move things around, like food and digestive juices. And again, you don’t even need to think about it!

NERVE

When we say we “get nervous,” or that someone is “getting on our nerves,” we are comparing our life experiences to our nerves ability to feel things like pain or irritation. Our nervous system is made up of nerve tissue that controls and communicates with our whole body.

The boss of the nervous system is the brain. The brain communicates to the rest of your body through the spine and peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system is the brain and spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system is everything else. Nerves are kind of like electrical wires. Electrical signals travel along the nerves to send messages to and from the brain. With these messages the nervous system controls our movements and reactions. It also   enables us to feel pain, warmth, hugs, and more.

You might think of nerves like telephone lines of the body. Your peripheral nerves receive messages and these messages travel along neurons through the spine and to the brain. The brain says “Ah, hello, I got the message!” In the same way the brain also sends messages back to our arms, legs, and other body parts.

There are two types of nerve tissues— neurons and neuroglia.   

Neurons

Neurons have three parts—cell body, dendrites, and axon. The cell body has the nucleus, houses the cell’s DNA, and makes proteins for the rest of the cell. Dendrites look like branches and function like little feelers ready to receive input. The axon is the output portion of the neuron. If the neuron wants to communicate with another neuron, it sends an electrical signal throughout the entire axon.

Neurologlia

Neuroglia, also called glial cells, support, protect and defend neurons. They are neurons’ little helper buddies.

Your body’s tissues can be very complex and do many amazing things. Like a master designer, God wove cells together to form these remarkable tissues, which cooperate to form organs and whole systems within the body. Perhaps that is why the Bible says, “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:13-14a.

Flightless birds? Swimming Mammals? How awkward vertebrates fit

Vertebrates are animals with a backbone (think vertebrae). These are the creatures we usually think of when we think of animals. Vertebrates have tremendous diversity in shape, size, ability, and characteristics. They are truly wondrous creatures! The 5 classes of vertebrates are:
Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Mammals, and Birds.
I personally love the vertebrates, as many cute animals are part of this group— including my adorable human children. For a long time I wondered things like… what is the difference between an amphibian and a reptile? Or what makes a penguin a bird when it can’t swim? And why is a whale a mammal, and not fish?

As we study this different groups we find the answers to these questions!

Why are dolphins and whales mammals?

Mammals give birth to live young, feed them milk from mammary glands, breathe air, and have hair. So why are dolphins and whales mammals? You can probably figure out from the my short list above— whales and dolphins are born alive, and they get mother’s milk— even under water! And even though they spend their entire lives in the sea, they have lungs and breathe air. They can hold their breath for a very, very long time, but they have blow holes on their heads to catch a breath by touching the surface of the water. But wait— do whales and dolphins have hair? Why yes, they do! They have very little, but they do indeed have tiny little hairs. Whales have tiny hairs on their heads, and dolphins have whiskers!

What is the difference between a reptile and an amphibian?

How is it a lizard isn’t in the same group as a salamander? They look awfully similar! But a lizard is a reptile, and a salamander is an amphibian.

Both Reptiles and Amphibians lay eggs, are cold blooded creatures, and have four legs (snakes and caecilians being the exception). Yet these two group have some big differences. Reptiles have claws and scales, while amphibians have slimy skin and undergo metamorphosis.

Amphibians are named for their two lives— “amphi” means both— and these creatures are born like fish and mature to be land animals. Amphibians start as eggs laid in water, and like a fish, hatch swimming in water. Most amphibians even have gills— but not for long. As they grow, they develop lungs and live on the land. So while lizards and salamanders look a lot alike, they live very different lives.

How is a penguin a bird if it can’t fly?

Birds have feathers, lay eggs, and have beaks. Most birds live half in their nests, and half flying in the skies. However some birds don’t fly— like ostriches and penguins. Penguin feathers are coated with oil which resists the water so they can swim. Their different types of feathers—plumules, filoplumes, and after feathers— are perfectly suited to keep them warm in icy waters, and to help them “fly” underwater. These birds can live in the coldest climates on earth.

Ostriches, cassowaries, emus, rheas, and kiwis can’t fly because they don’t have a keel. The keel anchors the birds pectoral wing muscles together so they can get the lift they need to fly. These birds also don’t have the enough interlocking wing feathers for flight. Interlocking wing feathers are aerodynamic and perfectly suited to press against the air to catch flight. Instead these birds use their wings for balance, steering, and keeping cool.

I hope you found some answers to your questions and had fun learning about these unique animals!

You can learn all about vertebrates in the free PDF lesson below, or order the new Jolie Canoli Life Science book!

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Check out the Life Science Workbook!

Jolie Canoli Life Science is a workbook full of playful illustrations, easy-to-understand science lessons, playful quizzes, and educational activities.  Perfect for elementary students studying Classification of Living Things, Biology, and Botany. 

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FREE printable about vertebrates includes a poster, study guide, and short quiz!