Human Body: Bones, Joints and Muscles

If you missed the other parts of our Human Body Study, you can see them here: Human Body – Doctor’s Bag, Human Body ~ Body Parts, Human Body: Bones, Joints and Muscles, Senses, Cells, Heart, Blood and Circulation, Digestive System and Nutrition, the Brain and Nervous System, the Skin, Hair and Nails, the Immune System and Germs, the Respiratory System, the Excretory System, Reproduction System and Dental.

 

The next part of our Human Body Series is learning about the Bones, Joints and Muscles.

 

 

For learning about the skeleton, we made three different skeletons, all different, some were labelled, some weren’t.

The following skeleton was huge and made out of paper plates. The boys really enjoyed this. For the hands we traced around R’s on a paper plate and the feet trace from B’s feet. We found this idea on Pick Up Some Creativity.

  

We made this Mr Bones Skeleton and placed a magnet on the back of his head and attached him to the fridge.

And our last skeleton came from Spell Out Loud. It is a toddler sized printout on A4 pages that you will need to stick together.

 

This is a great song on uTube that they boys enjoyed!

 

 

The boys made a Skeleton with cotton tips on top of black play dough. I got the idea for this activity from I Can Teach My Child’s X-Ray Playdough.

Then they made an X-ray Hand. B thought it would be good to see how many ‘bones’ he could fit into his hand.

Then we made a skeleton out of the black play dough. 

The boys really enjoyed playing with the black play dough and have played with it, making all different types of skeletons, for many days now.

The boys then made an x-ray hand by painting white lines onto their hands and pressing them down on black paper.

 

We then talked about x-rays and what they do. We used this X-Ray Kit that I purchased. It has 7 x-rays in it and an activity book that explains all about bones and x-rays.

I found our X-rays, Ct Scans and Ultrasounds and we also had a look at them.

Below is the x-ray of my thumb with the piece of glass in it. Can you see the glass?

We also drew around each of the boys onto black felt and cut it out.

On one of these felt bodies they painted a skeleton,

and on the other they glued felt internal organs.

 

I also found “The Hand Book” at Booktopia. The boys had a great time putting this life like bone hand together and reading the book.

We also made a backbone by cutting up an egg carton and threading each cup onto two orange pipe cleaners that I had twisted together to make them longer.

Then we threaded on some round yellow felt circles (the easiest way I found to attach them) to represent the disks between each vertebrae. 

Also, as part of our bone study, we talked about broken bones. I found this plaster cloth wrap, which we used on a cheap doll we picked up at a garage sale. The boys wrapped an arm and a leg each. They loved this activity and surprisingly didn’t end up very dirty at all.

 We have completed some experiments in the past, that we went back through the photos and talked about what happened and how they relate to the human body. These experiments were Bending a Chicken Bone where we soaked a chicken bone in vinegar to see what would happen when you take the calcium out of a bone. The Naked Egg Experiment is much the same. You soak the egg in vinegar, taking the calcium out of the egg shell.

  

 

You can download a copy of my Human Body – Bones, Joints and Muscles Pack by clicking the link below:

We also made this model of a muscle which I found at Sylvan Learning 

Another great hands on muscle activity can be found at: Kids Activities Blog

I found a bone model at Science Matters Blog, but we didn’t have all the supplies, so I used what we had.

I used:

* a toilet paper roll for the periosteum

* green play dough – compact bone

* yellow play dough – spongy bone

* pink pipe cleaner – marrow

* silver meal bit inside the pipe cleaner – blood vessels

(Though the boys did mix up the play dough colours a bit)

You can find another great model at: Homeschool Journal: All Things Beautiful

 We also talked about exercise and stretching your muscles and how this helps look after them. 

We also talked about tendons and made this Robotic Hand. I got the instructions on how to make it from Supercharged Science, which you need a subscription for.

You can check out more activities on my Human Body Pinterest Board:

Follow Stacey Jones (A Moment In Our World)’s board Science – Human Body on Pinterest.

Some more awesome Links!

Bones, Muscles and Joints: Kids Health

Great Skeleton Game : ABCya!

Paper Skeleton – The Crafty Crow 

Paper plate skeleton – Pick Up Some Creativity 

Human Body Printables – The Home Teacher

Bone Model – Science Matters

Human Body Unit – What I Learned Printables

Life Sized Toddler Skeleton – Spell Out Loud