Amazing bones

Once Halloween was over, talk of monsters and witches slowly dwindled. We weren't focusing on things that frightened us anymore but we found we still were very curious about skeletons and bones. Do we all have bones? How many bones do we have our body? Do all animals have bones? We began to wonder. 

We were lucky enough to have several real bones to examine and began to figure out which bone went where. Our anatomy book helped us piece together which bones go where inside our bodies. We also examined how certain bones fit together.

Figuring out how bones were assembled in the body inspired us to make some of our own. Using clay and our own plastic skeleton as a reference, we chose our favorite bones and began to sculpt. Some of the children held up their clay bones next to the mannequin to figure out if it was the right size or shape. There were even some kids that made bones that connected to other bones, like the foot bones connecting to the leg bone and the skull connecting to the neck and rib cage. It was pretty amazing to make these clay bones and to figure out these connections.

Another way of looking at our bones was with X-rays. One of our friends had very recently broken her finger and was quick to explain what an X-ray was. We acknowledged that, “ bones are hard inside our body”, but that they can break and amazingly can repair themselves, with proper care of course. 

Using an x-ray of a hand, the children placed sticks of various lengths where the bones lay. It's incredible to think that there are 27 bones in the human hand!

    After examining the x-rays of each body part, our interest was sparked.    In a culminating experience the children used all the X-rays and worked together to connect them. This entire inquiry has been a great opportunity to revisit the concept of connection. A friend told us “some bones go together, some bones do not”.  We noticed how important it was that the bones go in the right places.

The children had so many interesting insights and thoughts to share about bones. One friend told us, “if you didn’t have bones you can’t walk. Your bones help you do stuff like dance  and walk”.  It was kind of interesting to notice that once our X-ray skeleton was finished the children seemed to turn their attentions elsewhere. So for now bones have disappeared back inside our bodies and the bodies of all our animal friends . There they remain doing the important work of “holding us up” as we move on to our next big thing.