Human Body: Pre-k 5/K

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Ana's Week

Human body week this year was just as much fun as I remember it being last year. Perhaps even more fun at times because we were able to do activities with several of our friends during co-op. This was just the break we needed from our very intensive geography units, so I’m really glad we switched the units so that I could get some much needed rest, as could Aria. This was definitely one of her favorite units that we have done so far, and perhaps the most successful in teaching her new things. She now knows all of her organs, several of her bone names, and more technical terms for germs and blood, so I am really grateful that she was so responsive to all of the lessons!

We divided the week into 5 different concepts: Skeleton, Heart, Digestion and Intestines, Skin and Germs, and Organs. In hindsight, perhaps I would have just gone with each day being a different system, but this structure worked well for dividing up the activities that I have without overloading too many days. Our busiest day was most certainly skeleton day, as I had loads of skeleton activities, so we covered it on Monday (as that is generally our most focused day). Aria loves anything skeleton and bone related, so she had a blast. The bone magnifying glass literacy game was an awesome find that I can use again during our dinosaur unit. The x-ray matching was a great activity too, and if you laminate it, you can easily reuse it year after year.

Heart day was an easy, short day before we hit up the library, followed by a super fun day of co-op on Wednesday where we covered organs. I made up several different tables of activities divided up by type and parents could go around with their kids to do the different crafts or show them how the activities worked. I had an organ table with organ matching, a heart game, magnetic body the kids could wear, facepainting a muscle face, jello brain dissection, and playdough skeleton. Then, I had a skeleton table where the kids could do some of the favorite  activities from our lesson on Monday. Lastly, I had a germ table (which we covered further later in the week). One of my friends brought fruit over so that we could look at different types of skin and used glue that the kids let dry and peeled off of their fingers to look at fingerprints. And another friend came up with the idea of the kids tracing and drawing themselves on a sheet of paper, which they all loved doing, even Skylar!

Digestion and intestines day was loaded with fun science experiments and hands on backyard activities, like seeing how long your intestines are. The bread science experiment was also a hugely fun and such a great way to show how food can become poop. Lastly, germ day as always was a blast. We played with glitter, pepper and soap, which are also great ways to show how germs stick on your body and run away from soap. The girls also really loved helping me clean the house and getting rid of all of the dirt and germs. They even fought over who could wipe the windows next or who got to scrub the toilet. Who knew cleaning could be so fun?

Weeks like this one make me so happy that Aria sees learning as something fun and not just hours on a clock or something she “has” to do. Sometimes math and reading can be a drag, but she hardly ever seems to feel that way about our themed units. This was actually a week full of intensive learning of information, lots of which I never learned very well when I was in school (so I was learning along with her), yet she loved every bit of it and would ask me the names of everything as she went. If there is one thing I can leave the week saying I’m most proud of is that she learned and loved every second of it. ​