Last week we learned all about cells, and this week our focus was on Dem Bones! We learned why we need bones, what they do, and their names. Since I am teaching K-2nd graders, I try to incorporate many different activities to help them learn. This week we learned a song about bones, played a skeleton game, created a skeleton, and more.

Learning About Bones

First we learned that bones provide structure, make red blood cells, and store minerals we need. We also learned the names of some of the bones. One of the first things that popped in my mind while preparing this lesson was the old song, “Dem Bones”. Bob Barner has a cute book that illustrates the song.

Dem Bones by Bob Barner (afflink)

Then I found a silly version on iTunes and played it for the kids. After listening to the song once, we played it again and pointed to all the parts during the song—and did our own silly bone dance.

Dem Bones by  Juice Music (afflink)

After getting all our wiggles out, we put together a magnetic skeleton (afflink) and labeled it.

I printed out a life-size toddler skeleton and gave each child a piece. Then they had to work as a group to put it together using their new knowledge on bones (yes, I could have done something more complicated, but I did not want to overwhelm them the first day.)

Since we were already moving around, we sang the “Bone Bounce” song and played a version of “Simon Says”. You can find the printables to this in the Doin’ the Bone Dance article toward the bottom.

For our craft of the day, each child make a paper doll of their body. The front of the paper doll was decorated to look like them. The second paper doll was painted black (ahead of time by me) and the kids drew their skeleton with chalk. These dolls were layered together and attached with a brass fastener.

I bought these paper doll cutouts from Hobby Lobby in the summer because I figured I’d do something with them. The bad thing was that they were bigger than a piece of construction paper so I couldn’t just trace the doll onto a black piece of paper. To remedy that, I painted each person black. You could do the same thing, or you could find a smaller paper doll template and trace one on black paper.

One of the moms in our group is a paramedic, so she brought in a full-sized skeleton. I wish I would have seen her drive up that day. I heard she strapped the skeleton in her front seat in order to drive it to class. I bet she got a couple of strange looks while driving. 🙂

We joined the older kids to observe chicken bones.

The kids broke a bone in order to see the marrow inside. They thought it was pretty cool and gross at the same time. 🙂

Each week my kids color in their My Body coloring book (afflink) and draw or write about one thing they learned for the week as homework. You can find all the past posts on the human body by clicking the button below.

Downloads:

Bones Take-Home Sheet
Dem Bones Challenge Sheet

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See more of our human body unit here: