This week’s activities

Thinking about our bodies

The teacher began by looking through one of our reference books, all about the human body. The children were intrigued by the different layers of the body – skin, muscles, veins, nerves and skeleton. They were interested in learning how each part works and how, when they all work together, they make our bodies move, feel, see, etc. This led to discussion about how everyone looks different, with different skin colours, eyes and hair, but how underneath, our bodies are the same, with all of the same muscles, veins, organs, etc.

Having thought about how their bodies might look on the inside and noticing similarities and differences between each other, the children went outside to explore their own bodies. First of all they lay on the ground and used chalk to draw around each other, labelling the body parts, such as head, leg, etc. They then went on to do some exercises, noticing how their body felt as they worked out. They discovered that exercising makes your heart and lungs work harder and you can feel this inside your body. The teacher explained that it is ok to feel your heart beating fast and your breathing being harder and this is one of the ways we can keep our body healthy. Some of the children went on to play tennis, whilst others balanced on different equipment. The teacher asked the children to think about what parts of their bodies were being used when they threw a ball, swung a bat, or balanced on a beam. Some of the responses were, arms, muscles and bones. One child said ‘your brain’. Fantastic! The teacher explained how the brain has to tell the arm to move using the bones, muscles and nerves in their shoulder, arm, hand and fingers and that their eyes feed information to the brain about where to hold the bat and where the ball is coming from. Isn’t the human body amazing and aren’t your children wonderful explorers and learners.

There are photos on our website and Facebook page.

Thank you.

The Pre-school Team