Learning About Our Bodies

At ICP we practice Emergent Curriculum, which means we listen for the ideas and questions that the children have, and then we try to build our curriculum from that. The Dolphins recently have been talking about their bodies, exploring owies, and sharing what they know, which is a lot, really. So we have pulled out books and puzzles and activities to help them learn more.

We read a book about our hands ad all of the wonderful things our hands can do. We sometimes read stories while we have Tummy Time in circle. Tummy Time, laying on your belly supporting your upper body on your elbows, is like magic in helping young children develop aspects of self-regulation. It also creates some interesting challenges, such as how to lay on our bellies in a circle and still make room for everyone. Because we are using our arms to support us, we can get much closer together than we could if our hands and arms were free. This closeness made it simple to take this picture.

We have been exploring our the names of our body parts, too. Here we traced around our bodies, making different shapes as we did so.

Then we painted them however we wanted.

The children have experience with going to the doctor, so we have been playing this idea. Here the Doctor examines a sick baby. All of the babies that came top seethe doctor this day had been throwing up, something the children also must have some first hand experience with.

The Doctor listened to their hearts, and looked in their ears, and looked at their tummies.

One daddy even brought his bird to see the doctor. There was something wrong with it's feet, but the Doctor took good care of it!