Bones and Muscles

We worked on our body a little more today. We discussed bones and muscles, and made the bones and muscles for one leg.

The body is made to be "interactive". So, the pieces are held on with Velcro so that you can take it apart and put it back together.

The bones are made from the Styrofoam of a meat tray. (Thanks King Soopers!) You can't see them because they slide into the muscle "pockets". The muscles are made of red knit so they stretch sort of like real muscles. The yellow circle is the kneecap.

I was very pleased with how it turned out, and how interested Punkin is and how much she participated. I had to cut out the Styrofoam "bones" since it required an exacto knife, but she cut out the patterns. I sewed the muscles, but she trimmed the threads and turned the "pockets" inside out and stuffed the bones in them. She loves the Velcro dots to hold them on (in fact, I've had to hide them from her!)

She broke a bone in the process - so we made a cast out of tape. One of the girls across the street from us broke her leg last week, so Punkin is beginning to understand that bones can be broken and usually fixed. We have a Scholastic video from the library with the story/song called "Dem Bones". We watched that tonight and she is fascinated by all of it. We have one more day to read a few books and talk a little more about the purpose of bones and muscles, how they work, how many we have, etc...