The Human Body
Literary Focus Unit
By
Megan Wilson
Literature Selection
The Human Body By Steve Parker
Human Body By Caroline Bingham
by I Skeleton By Ian Thompson, Steve Parker
Why don’t haircuts hurt? By Melvin and
Gilda Berger
Literature Selection
• The Magic School Bus Inside the
Human Body by Joanna Cole
• Panoramas Human Body by Nicholas
Harris
• Inside Your Outside: All About the
Human Body Tish Rabe and Aristides
Ruiz
• Head to Toe Science by Jim Wiese
Theme Study
• Students will take place in a thematic unit on
the human body. This unit will integrate
reading and writing with social studies,
science, mathematics, art , music, and physical
education
• Students will develop an understanding of the
human body and its many functions, such as
digestion, and the major bones in the body.
Language Arts: Reading Activities
• Students will read various types of literature
on the subject of the body. They will read in
groups or I will have the books on tape.
• Students will read their “amazing me” poems
out loud to the class.
• Teacher will read aloud to the class from the
magic school bus .
• Student will read out loud about how to keep
their body safe.
Language Arts: Writing Activities
• Students will write down notes or interesting
facts in their human body note book.
• Students will be writing a “Amazing me”
poems
• Students will be writing letters to themselves
stating how they are going to do a better job
of keep themselves healthy and protected.
• Students will be writing the bones of the body
as a class.
Language Arts: Speaking Activities
• Students will be hosting a debate on ways that
they could keep themselves safe.
• Students will talk about the adventures of
Miss Frizzles class.
• Students will be reading aloud their “Amazing
Me” poems to the class.
• Students will be reading in groups out loud
various book on the human body.
Language Arts: Listening Activities
• Students will be listening to the video on
digestion and safety.
• Students will be listening to the human body
song by Tree House Rock.
• Students will listen to what their peers have
discussed in the debate.
• Students will listen to their classmates
“amazing me” poem.
Language Arts: Viewing Activities
• Students will view different bones of the body.
• Students will view the magic school bus movie
on the human body.
• Students will view pictures in their textbooks
and various book on the human body.
• Students will watch a video on what the
digestive system entails.
• Students will watch a video on safety
Language Arts: Visually Representing
Activities
• Students will display their “Amazing
Me” Poems in an artistic fashion.
• Students will be labeling the human
body.
• Students will be Making and labeling
their own human bodies bones
• Students will be listing how they are
going to be safe in a creative way.
Science Activities:
• Students will be labeling the human body.
• Students will be listing the functions of major
bones.
• Students will be identifying the digestive
system.
• Students will identify what types of foods our
body can digest easier and some that take a long
time to digest.
Mathematics Activities
• Students will figure out how long it takes
the digestive system to digest their food.
• Students will figure out how tall they are
my using a measuring stick.
• Students will measure their heads and
figure out the circumference and radius
then do a whole class graph to find the
average head size.
• Students will graph the classes height
and length of forearm and compare the
correlations.
Social Studies Activities
• As a class we will discuss different types of
eating disorders and how to prevent them
from occuring.
• Students will discuss the different
evolutionary changes humans have made
through time.
• As a class we will discuss what body image
means and how the benefits of having a good
self body image are.
• Students will have a surprise guess a Gastro
intestine doctor to talk about the digestive
system and how to keep a healthy system.
Music and Art Activities
• Students will be decorating their “Amazing
me” poems.
• Students will be tracing their body outlines
• Students will learn the “human body song”
• Students will Decorate their Statement about
being healthy to look like the declaration of
independence.
Physical Education Activities
• Skeleton relays where students compete to be
the first team to have a full skeleton of correct
bones.
• Blind fold dash where students lead each other to
try and complete the skeleton.
• Simon says with bones where bones will be
scattered all over the gym and students have to
run to find the correct one in time.
• Capture the foot which is capture the flag but the
flag is a foot bone.
Technology
• Students will use a varity of websites to complete
the labeling of their bones/ skeleton traces.
• Students have the opportunity to play the DK
game on the computer called The Human Body.
• Students will look up online to find the cons of
smoking/drinking.
• www.digestion.com
• www.humanbody.com/gov
• www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus
Language Arts Strategies
• Activate background knowledge: students will think of prior
knowledge they already know on the topics of digestion
and the bones of the body.
• Group discussion: students will talk about ways of keeping
their bodies safe.
• Connecting: students will use knowledge learned to
understand how the human body has adapted to its
environment.
• Visualizing: students will visualize what their body's look
like on the inside by making their self trace and labeling
bones.
• Revising: students will have to do drafts for their “amazing
me” poems and also their statement of being healthy.
Language Arts skills
• Language: students will be able to understand
and talk about how to keep their bodies safe.
• Comprehension: students will understand that if
they see an image of the digestion system they
are able to understand the steps of the digestive
cycle and what happens to food after they
swallow.
• Vocabulary: students will be able to define
different parts of the body.
• Memorization: students will be able to identify
different bones in the body.
Grouping Patterns
• Large Groups: Grand conversations, viewing videos,
team building, skeleton relays, capture the foot,
debate, special guest, group comparisons of the head
and forearm, discussion on self body image, Simon
says, singing the body song.
• Small Groups: Peer reading, Sketch partner, Identifying
parts of the body, internet partner, measuring body
parts, revising poem and statement of health.
• Individual: Decorating poem and statement, labeling
their body sketch, taking notes from special guest,
writing important/ interesting facts about the body.
Time line of Literary Focus Unit
Monday Wednesday Friday
Morning
• Language arts: Start with
reading and journaling
about the human body
• Science: Learn about the
bones of the body and
digestive system
• Art: Work on trace of the
body and labeling and
sing songs to help learn
parts of the body and the
function.
Afternoon
• Math: Measure the
different lengths of the
body i.e. bones
• Social Studies: Discuss the
importance of a good self
image, and how the
human body adapts over
time.
• P.E: Skeleton relay to help
learn the parts of the
body.
Time Line of Literary Focus Unit
Tuesday Thursday
• Language Arts: Listening to
books read aloud,
debate/discussion, journaling
on KWL chart Begin work on
“Amazing me” poem.
• Art/Music: Draw the digestive
system on self sketch.
• Math: Measure the
circumference of head and
Radius, Compare forearm
length, make chart graph as a
class.
• P.E: Simons says and capture
the foot.
• Social studies: watch the
magic school bus video and
have a discussion with diagram
as to where the class is in the
digestive system.
• Science: Students will learn
what foods the body can
digest with ease. Identify the
parts of the digestive system
with basic understanding with
what its functions are.
Assessment
• Have them host a debate about ways to stay
healthy
• Annotated rubric will be used to asses math and
science activities.
• Assessment of poem and statement of health will
be on the finished product.
• Peer assessment / peer conferences with partner
assessment using a rubric they can self grade
each other.
• Teacher/ student conferences where we discuss
parts of the focus unit they are struggling with.