When I was doing the theme 'The Inside of My Body' with my kindergarteners, I started with the skeleton. Why? While the children cannot see their bones (unless with x-ray), they can feel it, bend their fingers to see where the joints are and try to walk or pick up something without bending their legs or fingers to see how those tasks would be really really hard to do. That is why I prefer to cover the skeletal system than internal organs because I think it is much more relatable to my students.
Here I am going to list my favourite song, resources and art ideas that you can use to cover this topic with your class.
1. Skeleton Dance Song by Super Simple Song
Children loveeee this song! The video is adorable and funny and they enjoy singing and dancing along to this song.
2. Build a Skeleton Printable
Download this printable to let your children create their own skeletons. They have to cut out all the bones and piece them together to form a skeleton. Then, paste it on a piece of black or dark coloured construction paper. Alternatively, you can print, laminate and cut out the bones. Place them on a ziplock bag, put them in your theme corner and the children piece the skeleton together. Click on the picture below to download this free printable
3. Skeleton Craft Ideas
Below you will find some craft ideas that I have pinned on my Pinterest board. Drawing or creating a skeleton art is a complex task because a skeleton is made up of so many parts, thus there are not that many options to choose from. For my class, I took the idea from the pasta skeleton and created a tray filled with different types of pasta. Place it in the art corner and let children use the pasta to build a skeleton. You can prepare trays for them to arrange their skeletons instead of gluing the pasta onto paper because it is quite annoying as their hands get sticky and it becomes hard for them to continue working. Also, the pasta fall off quite easily.
Creating an art work do not always have to involve pasting or drawing something on paper that can be kept. It is nice sometimes to build sculptures or create a picture with loose parts on the ground that can be taken apart easily and can't be kept as a physical item (but you can still take pictures!)
4. Fun facts about bones or the skeleton
Learn some fun trivia about bones and the skeleton, for example, the largest bone is the femur or the thigh bone, the bones in your ears are the smallest, if you have no bones in your body, you will be just like a jelly fish! and you can also ask questions to get them thinking like do you think your bones grow? do them ever stop growing? etc.
5. Keeping bones healthy
Talk about different ways to keep bones healthy as well as to protect them. by eating food that are high in calcium, exercising, wearing the right protection gears such as wearing a helmet when riding the bicycle, etc.
Just a note that I would like to share when talking about food high in calcium with your children. Do not limit their knowledge with only talking about dairy products. There are many other food that provide good source of calcium too such as dark leafy greens (e.g. broccoli, spinach, green beans, etc.), almonds, soy milk, tofu, etc.
Other related posts on 'My Body':