Attention Getter: Body Puzzle
Review Bodies Day 1 lesson by bringing out the floppy monkey. See if the children can remember what the monkey needed to make it move (See Bodies Day 1 Plan). They will be able to tell you that the monkey needed skin, skeleton and muscles!
Ask the class, "What else is inside your body?" As they answer, guide them to the concept that they have very special organs in their body that help them as well. Place a picture of a body outline on the board as you point out that today they get to learn about what is under our skin, skeleton and muscles.
Activity 1: My Amazing Organs
With a body outline on the board, lay the pictures of the brain, heart, lungs, stomach and intestines in front of the class. Tell them that these are the organs they get to learn about today.
Here is the best link we have found for a body and organ outline: https://www.adventure-in-a-box.com/printable-life-size-organs-for-studying-human-body-anatomy-with-kids/
Let a child come up and choose an organ. Tell the class what the organ is and then place it on the body. As each organ is placed on the body, do the following activities to demonstrate its purpose:
Brain: Point out that our brains control our bodies. Our brain is protected by our skull. Our brains help us think and learn. Have a child come up and place a "brain" headband on them. Ask a few "brainy" questions and let them answer. Then, tell them that they get to do an action and see if the rest of the class can follow. As the class follows, emphasize that their brains are telling their skin, skeleton and muscles to do those actions!
Heart: When you discuss the heart, point out the it is the strongest muscle in our body. It is so strong because it beats all the time. Our hearts are about the size of our fists. Let the children make fists to see how big their hearts are. Then show two pictures: one of a real heart and one of a heart shape. Ask the class, "What does your heart look like?" Explain how the heart inside their bodies looks different than the heart shapes they usually see. Discuss how the heart pumps blood throughout their bodies and how they can see where the blood is pumping by looking at their veins.
Lungs: When discussing the concept of lungs, use a balloon to show how the lungs fill up with air when we take breaths and how they release air when we exhale. Have the class blow with their lungs as you blow up a balloon. When it is time to exhale the air, let the balloon go! This is the children's favorite part as the balloon flies across the room. Be prepared to do this several times!
Stomach: As you introduce the role of the stomach, take out a cracker and ask the class, "What happens to this cracker when I eat it?" Eat the cracker and explain how your mouth makes it into small pieces and then you swallow it. When you swallow, the cracker goes down your throat and into your stomach. When it gets to your stomach, it begins to get squished into much smaller pieces so that it can be sent throughout your body. (As you demonstrate this, touch your throat when you swallow, follow it down to your stomach, and then use your hands to represent the squishing that the stomach does.) Then give each child a cracker and let them eat it, swallow and start squishing, when their cracker gets to their stomach.
Intestines: Fortunately, there is not a circle time demonstration for the intestines! But we do place them on the body and point out that the food our body does not need, has to be expelled from our body. That is why we go to the bathroom. It helps keep our bodies healthy.
Book: Parts by Ted Arnold or Me and My Amazing Body by Joan Sweeney
Activity 2: Body Stickers. Give everyone 10 dot stickers. Now that they know all the important parts of their body, they will get to place them on each part that you say. Try to think of some tricky body parts such as: shoulder, elbow, heart, stomach, brain, forehead, ankle, wrist, etc.
Bonus Section:
Want to see what we did for our Creative Project today? We made sock puppets. The children always love them and it is a great way to emphasize the different parts of the body we have learned about throughout the week. (When we make sock puppets with preschoolers, we already have the mouth glued in, so the puppet is ready to decorate.)
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