Anatomy on a Budget: Bones (Skeletal System)

 Let’s do another round-up of basic materials useful to teach the skeletal system.

1.  Arizona State University has this Bone Lab, with a virtual dissection and viewer.  The same site has Bone experiments.  Save the bones from the Chicken Wing Dissection and either bake them or put them in vinegar.

2. Use either this guide or Bone to label a paper skeleton (or this one).  Test yourself with this worksheet.  I bought an inexpensive Halloween skeleton for Anatomy.  The first assignment is to determine if the skeleton is accurate.  This lab compares make and female paper skeletons.

3. Use a diagram is a bone and make a clay model.  When kids make models, they closely observe the structure.

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4. Home Science Tools has a nice unit, Skeletal System, with Try This! activities, such as using eggs to represent your brain.  This packet is useful for younger, elementary-aged students. 

5.  Look at slides of bones under the microscope or examine and sketch virtual bone slides.  (BTW in Histology, students learn how to make slides, stain slides, and identify them.  I can tell you from personal experience that making slides with different stains is a dark art.)

6. Make lab fun with this Forensic Remains Lab or The Mystery of Bones.  Take a little inspiration from this blog post about a similar lab. Ask your kids which lab looks more fun.

7.  Here, here, and here are expansive slide decks to help you organize the unit.  Look at this Weebly for ideas and videos to help outline this unit.  Use these materials as part of a lapbook.