Through the eyes of our preschoolers.
Preschoolers inquire about our bodies often. Why do I bleed when I get an owie? Why do I poop? Where does my food go when I eat? The list is so long, I can't even begin to share them all here. What I can share is part of a unit study I did with our preschoolers over the summer. It is ongoing, as we are studying about bones this month, but what I do have will be enough to get you started on your very own unit study of
the Human Body.
We began our project by tracing everyones outlines onto paper. This was the foundation for our studies.
It kinda tickled when tracing around the neck.
We used a human anatomy book to study different parts of the body. One of the first things we talked about was our brains. I invited everyone to tell us what they knew about the brain. We learned where it was in our body, what it was capable of, the color, watched a video of the brain, painted the brain, and showed where it would go on our human outlines.
When I asked about our heart, the kids all said, Valentines days, love, and ofcourse our heart shape. Part of the learning the kids discovered that the heart pumps blood through out our bodies and they learned where it was located in our framework.
After enjoying a yummy snack, we decide to feed a piece of their leftover snacks into a baggy and let the digesting (or squishing) begin:
After the real-food digesting, we went to the schoolroom to discuss the processing of foods and where it goes. How we use it in our bodies and where is the location of the stomach in our bodies. We made new baggies of stomach contents, using colorful yarns, pompoms, bits of playdough, felt, and string. The colors were simulations of foods they had eaten. This baggy was attached to the drawing of a stomach that was placed on their body outlines. This discussion led to our mouths, our esophagus, our stomachs, our intestines and where the waste ends up. (imagine the flushing sound now) LOL. This unit on stomachs also led into a unit on our livers. What their functions were and how it was used to help in the seperation of waste and gathering up of special vitamins and nutrients we needed to help our bodies grow strong.
Now for our lungs. The kids wanted to know where our breath goes when we breathe. Does it go into our tummies, asks one of the children. So we discussed what lungs looked like. We researched it online, we made our own lungs out of straws and balloons. We attached it to our body outlines and we drew our discoveries onto paper.
After the lungs, we did our veins. This was done specifically for our little ones who were getting immunizations and why were doctors using needles and where was the needle going into. It was a special unit and we used blue and red pipe cleaners. We simulated drawing blood and expressing that it was "ok" to cry if it hurt, because we are still brave even if we cry.
After our veins, we had a day of dressing up as a human body. You gotta check out some of these pictures. They're adorable:
Here we are now looking at our mostly completed bodies, minus the bones. October is a great month for discussing bones. Once we complete the bone unit, I may just have to add onto this blog to share how the children used their knowledge of bones.
One last thing I wanted to share. This unit came at a great time because one of our family members was admitted into the hospital with a pulmonary embolism. I used this as an opportunity to explain to the children what was going on in our family. All the kids wanted to make a get-well card for Taylor, and here is the front cover.
Notice the bandaid on the lung. Drawn by a three year old. Wow, I am amazed at how much these children have learned.
Well, I'm off to plan our bones project now. More pictures to come soon.
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Wind Tunnel of Stanford University, dated 1915
The kids stood right at the sides of the runway watching planes fly in and take off. One plane even circled around so they could wave to the kidz. There were screams of excitement coming from all kids. Well, me too LOL!
