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Our Community Helper for U is Ultrasonographer! My girls got to see several ultrasounds prior to Eli's birth, and they were able to appreciate the profile pictures at that time identifying the head and nose. Bria was really funny during one because when we saw Eli's spine she yelled "teeth!" They still enjoy looking at their own ultrasounds as well (and baby pictures in general), so that is where we started. We looked at the ultrasounds, and I explained to them how when you look at ultrasound you are looking at a cross section of whatever the subject is or basically looking at the flat version of a 3D object. So as we looked at the pictures we talked about how the picture was formed and labelled the parts we could identify.
After looking at all the pictures I had a little activity set up for the girls to match up various objects with their cross sections that I had drawn on a piece of paper. They have practiced this with your typical 3D shapes already, but this time I chose some shaped Easter eggs and several kitchen objects that you could look at in different ways. I had them match up each object with the cross section, and then on ones with multiple cross sections I asked them what it would look like if I cut it a certain way, and then they found the pictures that would match.
They easily matched the eggs, but the boxes and cans were a little harder, and the straw was the hardest. They figured it out though!
Once we matched them all up we talked a little bit more about why you might have an ultrasound including to check on babies (one of their favorite subjects) as well as looking at other body parts. They were even able to describe to me what intestines might look like on an ultrasound!
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