My Body unit

At the start of our homeschooling year we decided to do a unit on "My Body".  Although this had been covered last year during his learning co-op, he was not able to finish the unit as he got sick with the flu and missed a couple of weeks of class time.  I knew that he would enjoy the topic and that there were projects he didn't get to finish that were worth reviewing. 

We started by reading the books "My Hands" and "My Feet" by Aliki.  We made a fingers book (not pictured) where we traced Bean's hand 5 times on different pages and then had him color thumb, pointer, middle, ring and pinky finger, one on each page.  He also got to take his fingerprints and we discussed how everyone's fingerprints are unique.  He made his footprints and then we labeled the parts of his foot.  We discussed how hands are useful for a larger variety of things then feet.  To prove this point I had him try drawing a picture with his toes...not as easy as you think! (he managed a few lines but they are hard to see in the picture)  This was also a great time to review right vs. left, although Daddy taught him that during bath time for the past two years when he would say "Give me your right leg, or your left arm".

 

This was the project I knew Bean would love to finish from last year.  He made a body tracing and decorated his face last year, but then got sick with the flu during the time the rest of the kids learned about their organs and put them on their body tracings.  We used the series of books above to teach about what each part of the body does.  Once he had glued the organs/body parts onto his tracing I went back and typed up clues for each of them.  I would read the clue and then he would decide which one I was describing and glue it in the proper place.  Although we are officially moving on from the body unit I think we'll leave "Bean" up and add to him as we continue to learn about different part of our body.

 

I've always loved the Rookie Readers series and was happy to find they had some at our library that discussed how our brain, heart and lungs work.  We also used the "Hear Your Heart" book to discuss our hearts in a bit more depth.  Bean used his stethoscope from his doctor's kit to listen to his own heart and Mommy's.  "The Skeleton Inside You" was a good book about bones and I was able to score a cheap, plastic skeleton at the Dollar Store (Halloween season!) to have him identify different bones named in the book.  After we read these we kept them in our bookshelf for him to read on his own or at bedtime with Daddy. 

We also discussed the outside parts of his body although this concept has been mastered for some time.  To follow up he colored a person and a face and then glued labels on the correct part.