HUMAN BODY: PK-3

CLICK HERE FOR FREE DOWNLOADABLE HUMAN BODY UNIT

Ana's Week

Man, was this a crazy week! I’ll be completely forthright that I took on too much this week, so our unit actually spilled into the evenings and Saturday. But hey, that’s the great thing about homeschooling! We don’t have to fit our units into a traditional week! I’ve decided to try and get involved with a local coop on Fridays, partially to give Aria another opportunity to play with friends and partially because I want to know if this would be a good option for replacing preschool prep next year when she grows too old for the class. However, this means that I am down from 4 days to 3 full class days over the next 6 weeks, so if my units seem more spaced out over the coming weeks, that’s because they are! I’m going to start a fairy tale unit that we can go slowly through, a story at a time. Should be fun! I’ll let you know how co-op goes as the semester progresses!

The Human Body unit was fun, if a little rushed. I’m not sure how much Aria absorbed overall, but she did have fun doing the science projects, reading the books, and there are a few body parts she now knows. My favorite activity this week was creating a wearable human body paper bag, which had body parts that Aria could blow up like a balloon or send food down a tube. I had a hard time getting Aria to be helpful in making this item, but I plan to do it again next year, so hopefully she will be more involved next time. We also read the book Madeline before making it and put an appendix on the outfit, in honor of Madeline getting her appendix out. I think it was helpful to her to have an idea of where an appendix was and it also helped Aria learn about digestion.

We made a spine one day with egg cartons (also worked to teach about reusing and recycling) and attached it to our human body outfit. Then, we made a brain together using playdoh. I stuck a wire through it and attached it to a headband she could wear along with her human bird outfit! I also bought the Human Body Organs Toob online, and that was helpful for learning a few of the organs. Even I didn’t know what some of them looked like, so I was learning right along with Aria!

In addition, I had a Magic School Bus Human Body science kit. While a lot of the activities were too difficult for Aria at 3 years old, we were able to do a few and then save a few for next year! We put stickers on a poster of all of the body parts, and since they were numbered we were able to practice matching the numbers. Then, while I went to the gym one day, Aria made a homemade stethoscope with my husband and practiced listening to his heart. I made homemade chicken stock one day from a leftover chicken and we used the bones to do a science experiment from the kit that taught the importance of needing to drink calcium and the importance of strong bones. Last, we put together a leg from the box with a tube and, opening and closing it, talked about how our muscles are important to helping us move. While some of the concepts were probably too difficult to fully grasp, we were able to introduce them in a fun way!

We read the Curious George Germ Book, one of her favorites, over and over again, making sure to read all of the side notes on germs and talked about washing our hands to stay healthy. I think being sick recently helped her understand this book a little better. The favorite book of the week, however, was an Usbourne book I bought called The Human Body: A Shine-the-Light Book. You learn all about the human body in a fun way that involves using a flashlight! Aria wanted to read the book every night.
​
Overall, I think that the unit will be much more successful next year but I had fun introducing Aria to human body basics beyond what she already knew (aka her external body parts)! Plus, I learned a bunch of information too, which, if we are being honest, is one of the best perks of homeschooling!

Jessica's Week

This week felt a little rushed to me. There was so much I wanted to cover and was trying to squeeze into a short period of time, perhaps it would have been better to let this unit take over more than one week. I also wish I could have done it around Halloween since most of the bones books we found had a spooky undertone. We also dissected a jello brain and nothing says Halloween more than cutting open a gooey head. Dispite the fact it’s April and not October we did have fun. Taegan seemed really interested about what’s going on inside her body since up to this point we have only talked about external body parts. I bought the Toob organs and we went over what each one does. It was fun to trace her body onto butcher paper so she could position each organ approximately where its located inside her. We also used our tracing to play the “nervous nelly” game and learn how our brain communicates with all the other parts. All of this paled in comparison to Ana’s awesome paper bag body idea though. I did most of the work while T was napping but she added a few special touches like the heart coloring threaded with blood you could pull through veins and a yarn glob for intestines. Her favorite parts were feeding the stomach and filling up the lungs. I started to worry she would hyperventilate with as hard as she would blow to inflate them over and over.

To illustrate blood components we played in a sensory bin of water beads. This was my first time trying them out and I have to say they are impressive. It takes a while for the beads to soak up water and grow to a playable size (leave them soaking overnight) but once they do the texture is really fun. We threw in some bacteria and virus which Taegan loved “defeating” with white blood cells & platelets. After we were done in the blood bin, I transitioned our sensory table to a light board by stacking two tubs and filling the bottom one with white Christmas lights. You can print play x-rays on vellum paper and we matched up different animals and body parts to their x-ray counterpart.  I downloaded an app called “Benny Bones” that’s kind of a puzzle with all the bone names too. I think T is still a little young for this but it’s something we can use again next year for sure. 
​
Most science museums have a “body” section but we got a special treat when ours teamed up with the area hospitals. Get this, they brought in real pig brains and my three yr old homeschooler actually got to dissect one. Im not going to lie, I think we both preferred the jello brain to the real thing….just looking at it made me a little quesy (it could have also been the sharp scalpel in the hands of a toddler I suppose) and Taegan wasn’t a big fan of wearing too big gloves but how often do you get this kind of experience?