| TAF >> Teaching Materials >> Online Publications |
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| INTRODUCTION | |
| PART I Myself & the Neighborhood | |
| Myself & Neighborhood | |
| Community Quilt | |
| The Mail Carrier | |
| Let Your Fingers Do the Walking | |
| The Sign Walk | |
| Who I Am | |
| Baking Bread with the Little Red Hen | |
| PART II Exploring Systems | |
| What's in a Thumb | |
| Parts of You | |
| Puzzles Are Systems | |
| How Many Systems Do I Belong To Right Now | |
| PART III Communicating with Others | |
| Talking with our hands | |
| Lullabies link people | |
| PART IV Myself and the Larger World | |
| Move, Feet, Move | |
| The Challenge of the Desert | |
| Planning a Park | |
| Communication Tools | |
| TV or Not TV | |
| Missing the Point | |
| Who Likes Animals | |
| A Simple Chocolate Bar | |
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WHAT'S IN A THUMB? Purpose To demonstrate the interdependence of body parts÷the thumb to the rest of the hand and to the total functioning of the body, including emotions÷in a vivid, enjoyable way. Areas of Study Science (awareness of the function of body parts) Language Arts (questioning, oral communication) Music (singing) Art (drawing, paper puppet construction) Objectives To increase awareness of the interdependence of body parts students will: Experience what it is like not to be able to use a body part. Attempt to do ordinary classroom tasks. Comment on experiences as well as feelings when a body part is not working. Suggested Time 2 class periods Materials Masking tape, construction paper, paper fasteners Comments to the Teacher Using physical activities to demonstrate awareness of the interdependence of body parts can be fun for children. Distribute precut pieces of masking tape to each pair of children as this will help make the activity run smoothly. Also ask your local hospital for old X rays. Children enjoy seeing "bone pictures." They also help children to see the interconnectedness of the skeletal system. Activity I Have students work in pairs. They are to tape one of their partner's thumbs to the rest of the hand, so it is immobilized. Right-handed children should have their right thumbs taped, lefties their left thumbs. (The one doing the second taping will experience how difficult it is when only one thumb is available.) When the thumbs are taped, direct the children to try a variety of familiar classroom tasks, such as writing their names, coloring pictures, sharpening pencils, opening glue bottles, and so on. Discuss how they felt when one part of the body was not working, and encourage comments on both physical and emotional feelings and their interdependence. Ask what activities were difficult to do and why, reinforcing the systems vocabulary learned earlier. If appropriate, show a picture of the inside of the thumb and hand (even the whole body) and identify the parts and their connections. Apply this taped-thumb experience to their own experiences with broken or sprained fingers (or arms or legs). Ask what happens when they break a bone or pull a muscle. Why does the doctor set the bone (to regrow/rejoin the connection), or ask them to rest the muscle (to strengthen the connection)? How does this affect the rest of the system? Activity 2 Try this same lesson except with an arm taped or tied down, or with a leg taped or tied to a yardstick (or have the children run a one-legged race), and discuss the parts (physiology) and connections (interdependence) of these other parts. Activity 3 Have the children sing and point to the connected bones in the song " Dem Bones" ("The shin bone's connected to the knee bone, the knee bone's connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone's connected to the hip bone. . . ."). Activity 4 Have children put together simple paper puppets by cutting out patterned body parts and connecting them with paper fasteners or brads at the joints (a skeleton puppet would be fun, and a vivid model of the main parts of the skeletal system). |
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