Teaching Preschoolers Anatomy

I think we all know that my son has a serious Curious George obsession.  He LOVES Curious George.  I love Curious George.  Any show that has my 3 year old building something and saying, “Look Mommy, a cantilever!” or “We need a stick to use as a lever.” has my official seal of approval!  This activity I got right off of an episode of Curios George.

    

I took a bunch of paper that was used as packaging in a recent box and taped it together.  You can use any paper or even get an inexpensive poster board.  Cole laid down and I traced his body.  Sorry, it is hard to see in the picture below.

                        

We talked about our body and why we have different body parts.  We talked about bones and what they do.  My son told me, “Bones keep us from being mushy lumps on the floor.”  I had told him this only 100 times when we watched the episode when Curious George breaks his leg.  He still remembers.

                              

We felt different areas on our bodies to try to feel for bones.  When we found bones, we tried to figure out the shape of them.  He said his ribs were “stick bones”.  Then we drew the bones on the trace of Cole’s body.

We talked more about different body parts and the jobs that they have.  We talked about our heart, brain, lungs, and stomach.  I drew some on construction paper.  I cut out the brain and stomach, but Cole cut out the heart.  Yipee, he cut curved lines!!

                           

We talked about where he thought those body parts were in his body.  The only ones he got right were the heart and stomach.  LOL, a true boy!  We talked it over more and through some guided questions, he figured out where they are.  He taped the organs to the appropriate spots.

Now we have an “inside” look at Cole.  He got such a kick out of this.  We talked about body parts for days.  Well different ones than we usually talk about. *wink, wink*

This is a great way to teach your young one about their amazing body and how it works!  Try it.

What body part do you end up talking about the most at your house?

Kim