“Mooooooooooooom. Mooooooooooom. What’s this? Can we open it?”
Startled, I look up from my piles of books to inform him that we’ll get to take apart and explore our new squishy human body model next week.
Seemingly satisfied with my response, this oldest son of mine wandered off and I focused my attention on pulling my lesson plans together for the following week. It was going to be awesome. Obviously with a degree in “cutting up dead things” {aka a biology degree}, I was eager to jump into our human anatomy unit. I just wasn’t quite ready to start today. It was Saturday, after all.
But before long a different voice started calling for me and a boy ran in with that same Squishy Body model.
“Can we play with it? Can we? Can we?”
The eagerness in his voice had attracted the attention of the two other boys. Pretty soon I was surrounded with three sets of puppy dog eyes pleading with me to let them play, to let them explore… TODAY.
And suddenly it hit me. I was standing on the precipice of an epic “cool mom” moment.
These boys of mine were begging to do school. Well, they didn’t realize it was school. They simply wanted to explore our dissectible human body model, so I wisely put aside my lesson planning and engaged in an impromptu science lesson.
Boys spread out the organ chart and meticulously started removing organs as they peppered me with questions or some of their own funny theories on human anatomy – some of which were too hilariously funny to ever post on the internet!
They were hooked. That Saturday morning spent playing and exploring sparked interest in what was to come. Now they are ready to start filling in the gaps in their knowledge
And it started with this model.
While it doesn’t appear that any of my kids want to follow in my footsteps, gifts like this can still go a long way towards fostering an interest in a topic as they play and explore. We are thankful for this gift which sparked interest at the start of our unit. For those of you who have children who will be learning about human anatomy, here are a few gift ideas for you!
Squishy Human Body Model Kit – As you can see, this gift was a huge hit with my boys (currently 10, 8, 6.5). We loved taking each organ out part by part, identifying it and then putting the body back together again. The skull even opens up to reveal the brain!
The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body
Human Body: A Visual Encyclopedia – This book is amazing. There are so many fascinating nuggets of information. I like that they use real bone names. I also just re-read through it (not word-for-word, but almost) and was delighted to find no references to evolution or any of the strange standards that are becoming more prevalent these days. It was just straight science presented in an engaging way.
My Bodyworks: Songs About Your Bones, Muscles, Heart And More!
This brings back sweet memories of my first foray into learning about human anatomy back in 2010. This book and puzzle formed the backbone for everything we did. We’ve pulled it out again this year for the younger one’s as my friend and I have begun our co-op again. It’s been a hit and the older boys still love piecing it together. I shared about these two resources when I wrote about the idea of learning in layers.
Me and My Amazing Body
Hape – Your Body – Boy 5-Layer Wooden Puzzle
My Bodyworks: Songs About Your Bones, Muscles, Heart And More! – These songs are so engaging, I think they’d be beneficial for the younger one’s as well!
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