Bones and muscles

Unit 4 of our Life science curriculum covers the skeletal and muscular systems. The first lab covered the skeleton. We talked about which bone is the longest (the femur) and where it is(your thigh). We talked about the humerus and how it isn't humorous when you hit it. We talked about the skull, the vertebrae, the rib cage, and others. We also talked about how if we didn't have bones, we would be blobs--and we would have to be in water or be the size of a bug.


Then we put together a skeleton! Well, a paper one, anyway. I cut out Kutey's, Kiddo did his own. They both glued them together on their own, with no direction. Yes, there is a picture, but Kiddo realized that later, and Kutey never wanted to use it.

Then we moved on to the muscles. We talked about how your bones can't move without muscles, how muscles pull, they can't push, and how they work in pairs. Then we made a model of the arm to demonstrate all of that (in the upper part of the picture).

We then moved on to reading more about bones in The Magic School Bus The Search for the Missing Bones (which I didn't even realize we owned but found when I was cleaning up the floor in the kids room the other day--how cool!)