Homeschool Bodies: Bones & Joints

We combined the study of bones and joints into one week after Halloween. The girls had learned a few leg bones while we made our skeletal leggings - specifically the pelvis, femur, patella and tibia ... plus, they already knew the skull and ribcage, so we just added a few on to that and called it good.

After dancing to "Dem Bones" and reading about joints, everyone tried walking and moving around without using any joints. That's pretty tricky. Then we learned about tendons and their role in helping bones move - particularly in the fingers. We even created a hand with drinking straw bones and yarn tendons. We slit the straws where we saw joints in our fingers, and that way when the tendons pulled, the fingers moved.

As for our paper wall bodies, the kiddos added wooden skewers for bigger bones, and Q-tips for finger and foot bones.