Tangled with Teaching: Hooray for the Humans! {Human Body Systems}

We spent the last 3 weeks learning all about the Human Body. I love to teach it and the kids really love learning about it! As part of the Core Knowledge Sequence we learn about 5 major body systems: Skeletal, Muscular, Circulatory, Digestive, and Nervous. We started with the skeletal system:

Don't their dancing skeletons look adorable? (Sorry the hall lighting is not so great...) We labeled most of the major bones and the kids loved singing 'dem bones' along to a youtube song video.

We also labeled all the bones (and later the organs in the digestive/respiratory/nervous systems) on this awesome velcro felt board that a student's parent sent. I tried to find where I can buy one but was unsuccessful. If you know, PLEASE tell me. I must know.

While digging through old files from my parents I found these x-rays of my own teeth when I was 8 years old. The kids thought it was pretty fun to see my permanent teeth hiding beneath the roots of my baby teeth.

We were SUPER lucky since our school is a K-9 charter school the Jr. High Science teacher happened to have a real human skeleton that we borrowed for a week. I was worried that the kids might be creeped out, but they were really mature about it and even nick-named him Bob. I couldn't help but chuckle when they would grab their writing paper and walk past and say "Hi Bob."

A parent picked up these 36" RCWilley tape measures for free which made measuring our bodies MUCH easier. I highly recommend. Snag some at your local furniture store (IKEA also has them) and laminate and they are PERFECT! So much easier than end-to-end rulers. We recorded all of our measurements including the circumference of our heads, the length from our hips to our toes in a little booklet about our body measurements.

I also had this great medical flip chart straight from a Dr.'s office. It has AWESOME realistic diagrams. Next time you visit, ask your Dr. if he has one you can have! :)

Here are a few sample pages from my newest TPT & TN products. First is our Human Body book containing a picture and writing page for the Skeletal, Muscular, Digestive, Circulatory, Nervous, Respiratory, and Urinary Systems. We added a page to our book as we learned about each system. It also includes a the human body systems paper dolls (a favorite with the kids) pictured below and few 5 senses things as well. Check it out here (TPT) or here (TN).