Our Bodies

My future medical professionals were hard at work this week learning about our bodies.

Each day we learned about a body system and worked on creating a body to show the different body systems.  To learn about the body systems, we used my little book in my pack My Body Is Amazing.  We covered the following systems: skeletal, muscular, circulatory, respiratory, nervous and digestive.

After learning about the body system for the day, students worked to create the body system in their "person".  Last Friday I told them who was in their group, and they worked to decide who was going to be traced.  Bodies were traced and ready to go for our first system on Tuesday (no school for the kiddos Monday).

Each group (5 groups of 4 kiddos per group) used the same materials, but got different results.  In addition to creating the body systems, student also had to label certain organs.  I wrote the words out for them on a dry erase board for them to copy.  At the end of our "body creation", I took the labels around to each group and had them tell me where to find each part and why it is important for us.  I was very impressed with how much students retained throughout the week.  When the kids took their person to dry in our literacy coach's room (thanks for sharing your floor space with us, Carol!), she also chatted with them about their person.

Here you can see the brain and them working to add bones.

Here is a completed person; these are hanging in the hall outside our room. The skull and rib cage (which 4 groups insisted we HAD to have) are taped on so you can lift them and see the organs below.

This was my second year doing a project similar to this.  Both times have been a very different experience.  Not only is each small group different, but the materials and thought process of the class as a whole was different.  You can read a little bit about last year's experience here.  I loved doing each body system the day we learned about it this year rather than waiting until the end of the week to do the whole thing at one time like we did last year.

In our dramatic play center, we also had "blood".  Thanks Pinterest!  We did not have any white blood cells in our blood because I thought the ping pong balls looked too big.  I told the kids those were missing but that they are part of our blood.  When our literacy coach came in one day, she asked the kids what they were doing.  One replied "Playing in blood.  These are red blood cells".  At least they are learning, right?!?

There were also Dr/Nurse tools available.  I printed some x-rays and an eye chart that were hanging there as well.

After finishing our bodies on Friday, we celebrated with Mary from Sharing Kindergarten's Dem Bones activity.  This was a big hit and a great way to end our body unit!

I'd love to hear how you teach your students about their bodies.  Next week, we are moving on to all things pumpkins and fall.  This girl loves fall, well, not today when it snowed, so I'm excited about the next couple weeks.