If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know how much I love making fun lessons for Everett and Finn. This week I focused on anatomy. I brought over Everett’s friend Charlie so we could have a fun and educational playdate.We recently received “From Chewing to Pooing” and it inspired me to bring out our other body books, (Usborne Big Book Of The Body, What is Poo, and Everybody Poops) and make a whole lesson from it.

Book Reviews

We had such a hard time potty training Everett, that he’s developed a huge interest in bodily functions, hence all the rad pooping related books! Our most recent, “From Chewing to Pooing”, has quickly become a favorite. It’s a rhyming book that details how food travels through the digestive system. At the end of the book, there are some pretty awesome nutritional tips and charts. I really loved the details it provided about how food is absorbed and why eating healthy is so important. Everett is such a tricky eater, but he’s starting to understand why keeping his body healthy is so important. Having a book explain how eating keeps you healthy was a great tool for us to convince him to try more foods!

Usborne has several awesome books about bodies and bodily functions. My favorite is “Big Book Of The Body.” It has these awesome giant pullout body diagrams that Everett loves looking at. It does a great job accurately explaining human anatomy without dumbing it down.

The other Usborne book we used was “What is Poo”. It’s a fun & gross lift the flap book that explains different types of poo and where it goes. It gives fun and simple poo-splanations without being tooooo gross!

When you’re talking about poo, you can’t leave out “Everyone Poops”! It’s a great simple introduction to potty training and also helps teach comparisons (ex elephant has BIG poop, mouse has tiny poop). Finn and Everett both love this one!

Anatomy Activities

Now for the fun part! I bought some special body tools from Amazon to help the boys get hands on, and we did some fun crafts! We also did some flexing to talk about muscles! ?

I planned on doing a couple extra circulatory system crafts, but ran out of time to do them- I’ll post a cool link at the end!

I bought the Melissa & Doug Magnetic Human Body model from Amazon. I liked that it had both male and female models as well as models that showed the muscle, circulatory, organ and bone systems. We laid the model down at the end and stacked all the systems to show them how many things our bodies could do at once. They had a blast making all the systems and we played a fun matching game with it.

I also wanted something more advanced and accurate looking, so I purchased an inexpensive human body model made by Learning Resources. The kids enjoyed taking it apart, but putting it together was kind of tricky, even for me. They loved getting in depth with the model though, and kept pointing out all the parts they recognized.

Craft wise, I did a few fun things with them. We made q-tip skeletons on black construction paper. The kids weren’t that into it, but it was fun to mess around with.

I also made plastic baggy lungs with straws and tape. The kids had so much fun with it! It was a great visual way to show them how lungs worked, especially using their own breath. This craft was so easy and cheap, but kept their attention the longest!

For the sensory bin, I actually had red gelli baff from Zimplikids already here, so I filled the tray with that, and added white ping pong balls, straws, and beads. Unfortunately this didn’t survive for photos ??. Finn grabbed it and it got EVERYWHERE- even on the dogs! So here is a link to a cool blood sensory bin using similar items and details!

The first thing we actually had the kiddos do was lay down on butcher paper and we traced their bodies. Then we rolled it up and saved it as a fun surprise at the end. After we finished our other activities, I brought it back out and hung them on the wall. We cut out the free life size body part printouts from Adventure In A Box, and the boys got to put them on their body tracing. I used Elmer’s Craft Bond Spray Adhesive, because it lets you move around pieces easily before firmly adhering to the paper without making a huge mess. I think this was a great way to end the lesson, because it really helped tie in the parts that are actually inside them. It was really neat watching them name the organs and try to remember where they went!

And finally, I reallllly wanted to make this cool circulatory system craft model, but we ran out of time! Check it out here.

In closing, I’d say that it’s never too early to start teaching your littles about their body. It helps them better describe how they’re feeling, helps them take charge of their health, prepares them for things like doctor visits, and to top it off, bodies are just really freaking cool. Just remember to describe things on their level and slowly build on it as they get older.

Comment below with your favorite activity!