No part of this work may be reproduced without written permission of AIMS, unless such reproduction is expressly permitted by federal copyright law, with the following exceptions:
•
A person or school purchasing this AIMS activity is hereby granted permission to make up to 200 copies of any portion of it, provided these copies will be used for educational purposes and only at one school site.
•
Workshop or conference presenters may make one copy of a purchased activity for each participant, with a limit of five activities per workshop or conference session.
For unlimited duplication rights and current copyright information, please visit www.aimsedu.org, e-mail us at permissions@aimsedu.org, or call us at 1.888.733.2467.

P
S
Topic
Physiology
Key Question
What is the purpose of a skeleton?
Learning Goals
Students will:
1. explain what a skeleton is,
2. understand that the skeleton gives animals shape, and
3. recognize some bones in the body.
Guiding Documents
Project 2061 Benchmark
• The human body has parts that help it seek, find, and take in food when it feels hunger—eyes and nose for detecting food, legs to get to it, arms to carry it away, and a mouth to eat it.
NRC Standard
• Each plant or animal has different structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction. For example, humans have distinct body structures for walking, holding, seeing, and talking.
Science
Life science
human physiology
Integrated Processes
Observing
Comparing and contrasting
Identifying
Materials
For each student:
Bag o’ Bones Words sheet
Bag o’ Bones Journal
Bag o’ Bones Diagram
one recloseable plastic sandwich bag
one disposable plastic glove
hand lens
glue
For the class:
paper fasteners
whole chicken (see Management 6) www.aimsedu.org
AIMS Research Fellow
Background Information
There are 206 bones in the adult human body.
Some are thick and straight, while others are flat and curved. The hipbone is large compared to the three bones inside the ear, which are so small they could fit on a fingernail. When bones are put together correctly, they become a skeleton. Archaeologists assemble ancient bones in order to discover what animals ate, where they lived, and how they looked.
Skeletons are strong, jointed frames that give us our shape and provide anchors for our muscles so that we can move. Joints—where bone connects to bone—along with cartilage, muscles, and tendons, all work together to allow movement. If you didn’t have a skeleton, you wouldn’t be able to do things such as walking, skipping, or hopping. You would flop like a rag doll! When your bones break, the doctor sometimes puts the broken limb in a cast.
This keeps the bones in the correct position so they can grow back together.
If you have seen bones in a museum, you may think that your own bones are also dry and brittle.
However, the bones that make up the skeleton are alive, growing, and changing all the time. For example, the bone marrow, the innermost part of the bone, makes blood cells. When a baby is born, he/she has 300 soft bones, which eventually grow together to form the 206 bones that adults have.
Calcium is an important ingredient for keeping bones strong. Foods rich in calcium include milk, yogurt, ice cream, and broccoli.
Management
1. Teachers need to be extremely sensitive to students with special needs. It is important that each child feels accepted, included, and respected during each activity.
2. These activities should be done over the course of a week.
3. For each student, pre-label a recloseable plastic sandwich bag with Bag o’ Bones Words using a permanent black marker. This will serve as the container for the words.
4. Depending on age and ability, you may choose to use some or all of the Bag o’ Bones Words, or select other words.
5. Enlarge a skeleton diagram for reference during the activities. Cut apart the sections and attach them with paper fasteners so students can move the parts.
©MARCH 2004
1

2
6. For Part Two , you may choose to bring in only chicken wings or legs and demonstrate bone structure from those pieces. You can also precook a chicken, take off the meat and leave only the skeleton parts. It is recommended that you use an entire chicken for the activity in order to show the complete skeleton and how it supports the body. Turkey bones can also be used.
Procedure
Part One
1. Ask students to take a moment to think about their bones and then have them share what they know about bones. (The brainstormed ideas can be written on sentence strips and used at a reading station.)
“How do you know you have bones when you can’t see them?” [feel them] Have students feel their own obvious bones, such as those in their arms, legs, fingers, toes, skull, and rib cage.
“What bones have you seen?” [fish, chicken, or meat bones, dog bones (they will be referring to the kind dogs eat), dinosaur bones]
2. Tell students that their body is like a house and that the frame of the house gives it shape and holds it up, just like their skeleton gives the body shape and holds it up.
“Why are bones important to us and other animals?” [Bones support the frame of an animal, give it shape, and help it function.]
3. Direct the students to stand up straight and then slump down to the floor like a rag doll. Remind them that they would be like a rag doll without bones to give them shape and hold them up.
4. Have students point to the correct body part as you describe it.
“Point to the part that you turn so you can see your shoulder.” [neck]
“Point to the part that you use to pick up your sandwich.” [hand]
“Point to the part that holds your brain.” [skull]
“Point to the part that you put in your shoes.” [feet]
“Point to the part that covers your heart.” [rib cage]
“Point to the part that bends so you can run.” [knee]
Invite students to give other directions for the class to follow.
5. Give each student a set of the Bag o’ Bones Words to cut apart. Have each student put their words into a recloseable bag that has been labeled Bag o’ Bones Words (see Management 3) . Review the words with the class.
“Show me the word that begins with the ‘sh’ sound. Show me the word leg.” (Continue until all of the words have been reviewed.)
6. Ask a student to pull out one body part word from his/her Bag o’ Bones Words bag, say that word, and have the students point to that part on their own
©MARCH 2004 bodies. Call on different students to select words.
Continue until all of the words have been used.
7. Give students a copy of the Bag o’ Bones diagram and have them glue the words in the spaces pointing to the correct parts of the skeleton.
8. Have the class sit on the floor next to the enlarged skeleton. Select a student to draw out one of the bone words from the teacher’s Bag o’ Bones Words set, read the word to the class, go to the large skeleton, and point to that part and move the corresponding bone (see Management 5).
Repeat with other students selecting words until all of the words have been used.
Part Two
1. Tell students that they will be looking at the parts of a chicken in order to understand how the skeleton supports an animal’s body.
2. Remind students that bones give an animal shape.
Tell them that muscles allow movement and that skin covers the body, protects it from germs, stretches with movement, and is waterproof.
“Hold the top part of your arm, then bend your elbow. What can you feel?” [muscles]
“How do you know your skin is waterproof?” [when they are sprayed with a hose or go swimming, water doesn’t enter the body and make them bigger]
“Look at the skin on your hand. Make a fist, then open it. What do you notice?” [skin is flexible, stretches, and covers the muscles and bones]
3. Show students the whole chicken. Explain that when the wing is stretched out to the side it holds its shape because of bones and muscles. Point out the same thing with the chicken legs. Direct their attention to the skin.
“Why is skin important?” [covers the body, is waterproof, and protects muscles and bones]
“Why does the chicken have shape?” [skeleton]
4. Direct students to observe as the teacher removes a chicken leg.
“What do you see at the widest end of the leg?”[cut skin, muscles, bone]
“What do you see when I cut off the skin?”
[muscles]
“What do you see with the skin and muscles cut off?” [bone]
5. After breaking into small groups, direct students to put on disposable plastic gloves and use hand lenses in order to look at the chicken wings or legs that have been removed and placed at stations.
6. After they have washed their hands, give each student a Bag o’ Bones Journal page and show them how to fold it into fourths so that the pages go in order. Review the instructions, and have them complete the three pages.
www.aimsedu.org
www.aimsedu.org ©MARCH 2004
3

2
©MARCH 2004 www.aimsedu.org
Discussion
1. What do you know about skeletons?
2. Why is a skeleton necessary? [gives your body shape]
3. What would our bodies be like without a skeleton.
[limp, no shape]
4. What does our skeleton protect that you can’t see? [brain, heart, lungs, etc.]
5. Discuss the things you are able to do because you have a skeleton.
6. How is your skeleton the same as a chicken’s skeleton? [gives the body shape and has similar bones, such as the legs, neck, skull, rib cage]
7. How would a fish skeleton be different? …a dog skeleton?
8. What are you wondering now?
Extension
For advanced students, use AIMS Grouping Circles or yarn to make two overlapping circles, and have them sort the Bag o’ Bones Words in a variety of ways. skull shoulder rib cage
Words that have more than 4 letters fingers ankle knee foot hip leg toes
Body parts found below the waist
Curriculum Correlation
Language Arts
Using another set of the Bag o’ Bones Words at a language arts station, have students select one or two words and use them in a sentence. This can be done verbally or written, depending on age and ability.
Science
Place chicken bones in a pan of water with about
1/4 cup of bleach. Allow them to soak for one day and then let them dry for one day. This sterilizes the bones, removes any remaining tissue, and gives them a smooth, clean feel. Because of the odor of the bleach, it is recommended that this be done in an open-air setting. Place hand lenses or microscopes at a station in order for students to observe the chicken bones more closely. Ask them to sort the bones in a variety of ways. [shape, weight, length, color, texture]
Nutrition
Have a discussion about calcium-rich foods that keep bones strong. “Which of these do you eat? Which are your favorites?” Offer a selection of calcium-rich foods as snacks (see Background Information).
Be aware of students with food allergies.
Literature
Hewitt, Sally. You and Your Body.
Children’s Press.
New York. 1998.
Sweeney, Joan. Me And My Amazing Body . Crown
Publishers. New York. 1999.
* Reprinted with permission from Principles and Standards for School Mathematics , 2000 by the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics. All rights reserved.
www.aimsedu.org ©MARCH 2004
3

4
©MARCH 2004 www.aimsedu.org
www.aimsedu.org ©MARCH 2004
5

4
©MARCH 2004 www.aimsedu.org
www.aimsedu.org ©MARCH 2004
5

6
©MARCH 2004
www.aimsedu.org