Adventures In Aspen – A Peek At Our Week- 10/14/24 – 10/18/24 – The Skeletal System

In keeping with the theme of our Spooky Halloween season, Aspen learned all about the Skeletal System this week. Our Aspen students learned the names and location of all the bones in the human body. As we began exploring this topic, we found out that skeletons are not Spooky! In fact, without a skeleton we would not be able to move and do all the fun things we do! Aspen learned that our Skeleton provides our body with support and gives us our shape. Therefore, we imagined our body being like a big, strong house. We discussed that every house needs a frame to hold it up, and our skeleton is like that frame. The human skeleton is made up of different bones and Aspen students learned all their names. Do you know how many bones the human skeleton has? Well….this week, the Aspen students learned this and more. We discovered that when we are born, we have about 270 bones! But as we grow up some of these bones join together and we end up with 206 bones as an adult. We were absolutely shocked to learn that babies have more bones than adults!!

When learning the names of the bones in the human skeleton Aspen learned that the skull is the bone that protects our brain. The skull is like a helmet that keeps our brain safe! Also, attached to our skull is a bone called the jawbone or mandible. This bone helps us to chew and talk. Aspen also learned that the spine or our backbone helps us stand up straight and protects our spinal cord.We then discussed that our spinal cord is like a superhighway for messages. It sends messages from our brain to the rest of our body. At the same time, Aspen used these skeleton lessons as an opportunity to discuss the vocabulary terms vertebrate and invertabrate. We learned that animals with a backbone are called vertebrates and animals without a backbone are called invertabrates. We then learned about a group of bones called the ribs. Together these group of bones form the rib cage. They surround and protect our internal organs like the heart and lungs. The Aspen students also learned that our arms and legs have bones. Our arms have bones like the humerus (funny bone), radius, ulna. Our legs have the femur (the longest bone in our body), tibia, and fibula. Aspen then learned all about our finger bones and the bones in our feet. They are called the carpals, metacarpals, phalanges (finger bones) , tarsals, metatarsals and phalanges (toe bones). Did you know that our finger bones and toe bones are both called phalanges?? Ask your child what they learned about skeletons this week! They are now Skeletal System experts!!

After learning all of the above information about bones we then discussed why they are such an important part of our body. Bones are super important because they provide the support for our body. They hold us up and give our body its shape, they help protect us, they keep our important organs like our brain, heart, and lungs safe, and without bones we would be unable to move. Bones work together with our muscles to help us run, jump, and play and without them we would be a blob unable to do all the fun and amazing things we do! So this Halloween season when your child tells you how scary some of the Halloween skeleton decorations are, remind them of how important and awesome bones are! You could also ask them to name some of the bones they see!

Kindergarten students are continuing their work with phonics, segmenting, and word building. They also explored the Decimal System (formation of numbers), the linear sequence to one hundred and beyond, and began their introductory lessons with the Addition Stripboard. In Readers Workshop the kindergarteners were introduced to the Phonics Folders the precursor for reading the phonetic readers (Max Series).

See you next week! We will continue our Halloween fun as we study bats, cats, and other Mammals! Remember Trunk or Treat is next Friday!!

Learning the names of the bones with our Skeleton Puzzle!

Meet Mr. SKELLEY Bones! The children thought up names and then voted on what to name our Halloween Decoration Labeling Skeleton! Everyone especially loves checking out the Phalanges!! Giving SKELLEY a high five!!

Exploring phonics with the Moveable Alphabet! Isolating and combining sounds to form words!

Tracing numbers and practicing proper pencil grasp.

Explore texture by pairing the Touch Tablets! Next step pairing at a distance and Sensorial Extension fun!

Indoor recess fun! Singing and dancing to silly songs!

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