Summer Body Activity: What's Inside of Me?

Children will find out there's a real skeleton inside their bodies

• PRINT
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SKILLS: Children will use observation skills to learn about their skeletons.

MATERIALS:

• books with large, clear pictures of skeletons
• a plastic model of a human skeleton and a flashlight (optional)
• chicken or ham bones (optional for younger children)
• toothpicks and play dough (optional for older children)

IN ADVANCE: Contact a high school or college biology department about borrowing a model of a human skeleton. You can also purchase models (though not inexpensively) through science supply companies.

ACTIVITY

1 Share a book, such as Look Inside Your Body by Gina Ingoglia (Grosset & Dunlap), or other age-appropriate books about skeletons. Encourage them to look at the pictures and to ask questions about what they see. Discuss it with them. Place the book where children can look at it whenever they would like.

2 Invite children to try to feel their bones under their skin. Search first for bones in easy-to-find places such as fingers, elbows, noses, chins, knees, and ankles. Then ask, "Why do you think we have bones?" "What do you think bones look like?" Pause after each question and allow plenty of time for children to share their ideas and/or concerns.

3 Follow up with this poem. Invite children to act out some of the words.

There are bones in my fingers,

There are bones in my toes.

When I feel my face,

I feel bones in my nose.

Fish have bones,

So do pelicans.

And when we put our bones together,

They make skeletons!

For younger children: Bring in a selection of cleaned chicken or ham bones for children to explore. Encourage them to describe how the bones feel as they rub their fingers over them, or how they sound when they tap different items against them.

For older children: Provide children with toothpicks and play dough that they can use to create animal or human figures. Suggest that children use the toothpicks to represent the bones of their figures. Later, ask, "What would your play dough figures look like without the toothpick 'bones?' How would they move differently? What could they do without the bones that they can't do with them?"

SPIN-OFF

Place a model of a human skeleton in your science area. Observe the children as they approach it, and note the kinds of things they seem curious about and whether some children seem frightened by it. Talk about the skeleton and the different bones that make up the human body. Bring in a flashlight and invite children to hold it very dose to their hands with the light on. Often they'll be able to see the bones in their hands right through their skin.

Ellen Booth Church is a former professor of early childhood, a current educational consultant, keynote speaker, and author.

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