Preschool Fun: Outlining our Bodies

We really enjoy our Chalkboard/Refrigerator, and this week it made the perfect canvas for making body outlines.   The kids had so much fun outlining themselves, I think we must have done it a dozen times!   We used the bathroom mirror, a cardboard box, butcher paper and shaving cream in the tub. … My 2 year old is still learning the terms for some of his body parts.   He has leg and head down for example, but it still working on wrist and hips, for example.   I wanted to find a way to teach the joints to our kids.   Marionette’s are a great way to teach joints and demonstrate movement and carried over our obsession of outlining ourselves.

Supplies we used to learn about our joints:

• Big Cardboard Box – we painted ours first
• Scissors
• Yarn

Instructions to make your own lifesize marionette:

Outline your youngster on the box.   Be sure to add a couple of inches at each joint.   We only outlined half of our little fella’s body as he was pretty wriggly.   I then cut out the “parts” and used the piece I cut to make the opposite appendage.   Using our scissors I poked a hole in the cardboard and used the yarn to attach the joints together.       We had a ton of fun pretending to make our “man” kick a ball, sit down, do jumping jacks etc.   It was fun for the kids to have to think and problem solve, what body parts move when we jump.   How can we make our “man” jump?   What parts of the body do we move when we jump?   What do our joints do? … If you have older kids and want to adapt this lesson with more indepth learning, Henry County Schools has compiled a great collection of activities you can use with your family to learn more about the skeletal system of our bodies.