Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Doing a talk for Aidan's class at school next week

It's going to be about the digestive system. I'm going to be talking, among other things, about how our bodies make poo, a topic I'm familiar with from days spent working with poor little children who become chronically constipated.

I've asked Chris to source some stuff from his workplace for me....a torso with removable organs that I can take out and pass around. Apparently there is a poo T-shirt there somewhere. I can't wait to see what that looks like.

And I will probably include this as well:



This is a child-friendly version of the Bristol Stool Scale (downloaded from here), for those unfamiliar with it (the adult form doesn't relate the poo types to the different types of food). I always think they should have said that Type 1 looks like peas to be more consistent with the overall food theme. Types 4-6 are generally considered "normal." Types 1-3 are at the constipated end.  Type 7 is usually what happens when you have gastro bugs.

We have a copy of this on the back of our toilet door, which guests find quite amusing when they visit us. It is also a good way of helping the kids to let us know what's going on if they're a bit unwell.

It should be fun. I have a whole week to prepare. At the same time as I am doing this, Aidan has to prepare a powerpoint presentation on the optimal amount of sleep that humans need, so I am also supposed to be modelling for him how to do an assignment. So I am feeling a bit of pressure to not spend long periods of time procrastinating on Facebook or looking at YouTube videos and funny photos, as is my more usual habit when preparing something work-related.


6 comments:

Deb said...

Cool chart! That would be a very useful chart in our house too. Did you get a proper print version or did you just print that one off yourself?

Karen said...

We used to get whole notepads of them at work (we recommended Movicol to get things moving, so they gave us lots). The one in our toilet is an old one of those :)

I found this link for a pdf version that I guess you could print off, although I haven't tried to do it: http://www.eric.org.uk/assets/Childrens%20Bristol%20Stool%20Form%20Scale%20April08%20.pdf

Wendy said...

Cool, and all I get to talk about at school is Christmas in Australia!

simone r said...

I printed it off. Fascinating.

Andrew said...

My wife showed me that a number of years ago when she worked at the children's hospital. Very funny and useful for explaining to kids (and adults).

mattnbec said...

Ha! We've actually had cause to use this very chart in some of our household's kiddy medical situations! And movicol. I thought it was a great way of helping my child to describe what was going on too.