Bone Study {Anatomy and Physiology}

We have spent a while learning all about the bones in the human body in this super comprehensive bone study. We are using Apologia’s Anatomy and Physiology as our main text. However, I have done a lot of additional planning and plotting with heaps of fun hands on activities.

Goal for this Bone Study

1. Quick revision of Cells
2. To learn all the names of all the bones
3. To learn how we can keep our bones healthy
4. And finally, to learn how to apply first aid to various bone injury scenarios

REVISION FROM CHAPTER ONE

1. We made a biscuit cell to eat.  The children could only eat it once they had named all the parts and told me what they did
2. We made use of these flash cards for revision, after which we headed into our bone study…

Bone Study {Anatomy and Physiology}

Text Book

The first thing we did was read the chapter aloud from Apologia Anatomy and Physiology.  I did this over two or three sessions.  I had the children narrate back to me what I had read.  This is helpful first in ensuring that they listen and secondly making sure they heard and understood. 

Anatomy Bones DVD plus Activities

I had them watch Standard Deviants School DVD Anatomy Bones every day we did anatomy. The children watched this DVD a lot.  It really supported my goal for them to learn the names and positions of all the bones.  After each viewing we played Simon says.  We often use mnemonic type reminders to help us and we have A LOT of fun:

Each time we did it, they got better and better.  Until Daddy joined in, asking them to stand on their metacarpals:

They managed that, but when he said Simon says ‘ jump on your cranium…’  Well, that just wouldn’t have been safe!

Playing with Bones

I got them to play with and construct our two skeletons and try to name all the bones.  It was interesting, because they found this much harder to do than Simon says!

Playing with Child X-rays

I also had some child x-rays, which I had the children build up and then label a few times (unfortunately the labels that came with the x-rays were not quite as detailed as I would have liked, so they also manually pointed out other bones they could remember):

Building a Card Board Skeleton

Right at the end of the unit, Gary joined in (again) and built up a card board skeletal model.  I am so blessed to have a man who wants to be involved:

Building a Paper Mache Bone Model for our Bone Study

This turned out to be the most perfect activity to go along with our bone study…in fact, it was a favourite all around!

I decided to have the children build a bone out of things we have lying around the house.  This will not be a scale model.  It’s important everyone, especially the children, understand this!!  I had a box left over from a TV purchase a few years back.  I’d kept it for this very purpose (yes, my brain works years in advance!).  I drew an outline around Gary and drew an outline of a large bone.  Using card board roles I made a very crude model of the femur.

Our Model in Photos

I had stuck the tubes to the card and using the papier-mache we packed up the sides and fashioned the sides of the bone:

Hopefully as we go through A & P we’ll add more systems, for now it’s not a pretty sight…..

Teaching Bone Health During Our Bone Study

It is important to me that the children know how to apply what they learn.  I always ask myself WHY I am teaching them whatever it is I am teaching at the time.  Along side teaching the children about bones I thought it was important they also learn about bone health and also bone first aid.  To this end we are going to be making a board and writing down everything we learn to keep our body healthy.  So far we have only studied bones so our list is small and includes:

• Exercise
• Vitamin D
• Sunlight
• Calcium

Learning First Aid Care for Bone Health

For bone first aid I considered the situation when they might learn something which could be of use to the injured person.  The ones I chose were bone fracture, bone dislocation and sprain of the bone ligaments.  I took them through some general first aid training teaching them to assess the situation, ensuring it is safe, to remember that the person is more important than the limb which is in trouble and do less rather than more. Teaching them to stay calm, to keep a low, level, calming voice and to ascertain as much information orally from the patient (if possible) was very important.  I taught them to assess the physical condition of the patient and to look for noninvasive ways to aid their comfort, without causing any more damage. 

The children learnt to bandage, apply pressure gently if bleeding was present, and to cool the area down using a cooling pack.  We looked into alternatives to use if we didn’t have a first aid kit available to use.  For example frozen peas for cooling,  a clean piece of material to stem bleeding, asking for help from bystanders if necessary.

This was a perfect activity to go along with our bone study. And also by far the most enjoyable for them to role play!

Bone Fracture

I photocopied information from this website for the children to read and put a copy into their note books.

Having read through, I asked them to narrate.  We then role played and they had a chance to put their new-found skills into practice:

Apart from the natural exuberance and excitability which characterises C10, making her anything but calm at the scene (!) they did everything really well.

Bone Dislocation

Again I photocopied first aid information from this site.  I had them read and narrate as before.  Then we role played with T11 the patient, C10 as first aider in charge and L10 her helper:

Ligament Sprain

I, again, photocopied from this site.  As before the children read and narrated.  This was a perfect activity to go along with our bone study. And also by far the most enjoyable for them to role play!

This was a great exercise but I do want to make a disclaimer.  There were some points from the first aid sheets which I discouraged the children to do, such as splinting the broken bone.  I encouraged them to do less rather than get ahead of themselves and think they know more than they actually did.  Questioning them throughout, I gave them many ‘what ifs’  ie what if you had no cloth to stem the bleeding, what if you had no phone to phone for the ambulance, what if the patient didn’t want you to touch them…  I was a community nurse and I know that often care is given under less than ideal conditions so I wanted the children to think and not idealise.  They loved this exercise and it was well worth it!

Creating a First Aid Kits to Take Care of Bones

Following on from this, I thought it might be a fun thing to gradually build up a first aid kit for each child, slowly adding bits to it as we went along through each body system.  I used a large zip lock bag:

Daddy had a go at teaching the children how to put on a sling.  He is first aid trained.

And what was A4 doing whilst all this was going on?

We had a lot of fun learning about our bones.  You know you’ve done something right when, after whacking his head on the radiator, T11 exclaims ‘Ow!  I’ve hurt my occipital!!’  Muscles next!