Learn About Bones And Create Your Own Spooky Skeletons
Like it or not, Halloween is fast approaching, and while its not for everyone, the kids seem to like it, in fact, it's one of those festivities that gets them all hyped up - a teacher's nightmare! With this in mind, I have made it my challenge to bring you one Halloween themed educational activity during the month of October. These activities will range from science, maths and biology lessons to sensory play ideas and fun learning games for the little ones.
Before I jump on today's lesson plan, please see some of my more recent educational submissions, all with a Halloween theme of course!
- Halloween Experiment - Power A Clock With A Pumpkin!
- Dissolving Candy Corn - Halloween Experiment
- Mad Scientist's Potion - Edible Halloween Treat (Learn About Dry Ice)
- Ghost Rocket Science Experiment - Awesome Halloween Activity
- Halloween Moon Sand - Sensory Play Activity For Pre Schoolers
- Learn About Bacteria With This Edible Halloween Treat
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Plant pumpkins in a pumpkin!
Today's addition:
Learn About Bones And Create Your Own Spooky Skeletons
Learning about the skeletal system during Halloween is most befitting, nothing spookier than a creepy, dangling sack of bones! This lesson is mostly suited for primary school aged children, but can easily be modified to fit younger and older age groups. The aim of the lesson is to allow the students to study the skeletal system by learning the names of the different bones and to go a step deeper; to learn what bones are made of. To make the lesson a little more light-hearted, it can be accompanied by a fun art activity where students can use earbuds (Q-Tips), which resemble bones, to design their own spooky Halloween Skeleton Critters, just like this:
Let's Learn To Name The Bones Of the Skeletal System
Start your lesson off by handing out worksheets that contain an image of a skeleton, or you can hand out a cut-out sheet with bones that are already named, so that the students can join the bones accordingly. They can use your "dummy"skeleton or a poster of a skeleton to refer to (make sure you have these set up in your classroom) or you can build a skeleton with them and discuss each bone as you set it in place.
Skeleton Poster:
Once your students have put joined their bones to create a full human skeleton, you can go through the names with them once again. Hopefully you will have some inquisitive minds wanting to know what bones are made of, if not, you can raise the topic and elaborate.
What Are Bones Made Of?
Around 70 percent of your bones are not living tissue, but hard minerals like calcium. The outside of the bone is called the cortical bone. It's hard, smooth, and solid. Inside the cortical bone is a porous, spongy bone material called the trabecular or concellous bone. This bone is lighter allowing for the bone itself to be lighter and easier for us to move around. It also allows room for blood vessels and makes our bones slightly bendable. This way our bones won't break so easily. At the center of bones is a softer substance called marrow. There are two types of bone marrow, yellow and red. Yellow bone marrow is mostly fat cells. Red marrow is important because this is where our body produces red and white blood cells. When we are born, all of our bones have red marrow. By the time we are adults about half of our bones have red marrow. Read more at: http://www.ducksters.com/science/bones.php
If you have some free time, or perhaps save this part for a casual Friday, allow the kids to use their creativity to make their own spooky skeletons. All you will need is:
- Black paper
- A variety of colored paper (like orange, yellow and red)
- Craft glue
- Scissors
Take advantage of this "spooky" month and turn tricks and treats in to fun educational lessons that will stimulate young minds and encourage an eagerness to learn. Please keep a look out for more Halloween Themed activities from @sweetpea
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Great idea!