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How The Body Works

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Childrens wonderings and theories about how the body works.


The Pedagogy of Listening (Carla Rinaldi) Listening to childrens theories enhances the possibility of discovering how children think and how they both question and develop a relationship with reality. This possibility is magnified when it occurs within a group context that allows for the experience of others to be shared and debated.
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Prior knowledge: what do the children already know? Topic: How do things work? After a discussion about simple machines, it was put to the children that the body is a machine. We talked about the arm as a lever when you hit a ball with a bat or racket. How do our bodies move, how does our arm throw a ball? (Marilyn) Children's responses: The brain is the boss of the body. There are bones in your body. Inside us are blood and bones. Bones have to be a little wobbly so you can move your arms There are bones in your mouth and nose, legs, toes, neck and foot. Under our skin is blood, bones and muscles. One Child asked, How
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do people make themselves?

The discussion continued the next day. What stops our bodies being so floppy we fall to the ground?

Childrens response: Muscles

The children were asked, How do our bodies work? Their responses: The brain makes your body work. Muscles! I asked, What do muscles do? Responses: They help you lift things Help you chop things Bite! Talk! Help us move. Help us lift up heavy stuff like weights in a gym. Our bottoms are a muscle. Muscles in our neck, muscles help you nod your head Muscles in your feet help your feet move. Muscles let us blink our eyes. I asked. Where are the muscles? Responses: In your arm, in your face 3/30/12

One child pointed to his wrist and said he could see a muscle, it was thin and green. Another told him, that is a vein and it carries blood. A child asked, How does our brain talk to the muscles? One child went into a very detailed explanation about a computer in our body sending messages to the muscles and Another asked, Why do we have blood in our body? bones. it carries oxygen. it takes germs out of the body
Staff Reflections: I was amazed at their knowledge and the depth of the questions they are asking . The sharing of information is great and they are taking notice of each other. I dont need to lead or even take part in the discussion! What Next: We will continue our discussions on how the body works and begin doing some drawings to help children represent their thinking and theories. I can see us further investigating the different systems in 3/30/12 the body.

How do our bodies bend? (Marilyn) Bones arent joined properly. They are joined with blood. Our bones are wobbly. How does the blood connect to your muscles and bones? Blood is in all of your body parts. To get more blood, drink water. Bones make blood. There is a little hole. Your chest pumps and makes blood go around your body. Exercising helps you with bones and muscles. Staff reflections: They have again mentioned about bones being wobbly. David knows about joints but doesnt use the word. Tracy has a lot of good information. What next: Look at our jointed skeleton. Further investigate the circulatory system.

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Circuit Training At the start of week 2 the gymnasium was set up with a circuit for the children to use to begin to increase their physical fitness. Small groups of children were taken into the gym, the music was put on, each child started at a chosen station, worked out at the station for an allocated length of time, then the bell was rung for everyone to change station. The children really embraced the opportunity to work out and it appeared many knew quite a bit about life in a gym. A cool down session completed each groups turn in the gym and the question asked Whos having fun?! They all were!

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We have begun drawings of our bodies. Children have been encouraged to closely observe a model. Some have been challenged by comments such as: do your arms come out of your head? This has caused discussion and closer observation. What are our heads attached to? What are our arms attached to? The drawings record childrens development in thinking.

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A series of drawings done by one child

Sally asked children to draw another child using the gym equipment.

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We decided to bring out the clay so children could experiment with creating movement in their work.

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Several children have asked: How did people get here before there were people? One child has a theory about a big explosion and he thinks people came from that. Some of the other children are not so sure. The children asked my opinion and I talked about the possibility that we came from monkeys the children said, No Marilyn, that cant be right. Our discussions will continue..
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One child asked, When the food goes in your mouth where does it go? All the lollies come out in your poo. What next? We will have further discussions about the digestive system

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The Digestive System


What organs are under your rib cage? (Marilyn) We had already looked at the rib cage as we constructed our skeleton so the children knew what it is. Lungs Heart Do you know of any other organs in the body? (Marilyn) No response What happens to food when you eat it? (Marilyn) If you eat too much junk food you will have some more eczema. Helps you grow. But where does the food go? (Marilyn) Down your tummy Goes down your tube And then goes into your tummy 3/30/12

Then where does it go? Marilyn) Into your foot It goes into a tiny tube and then into your foot What happens when the food goes into your foot? (Marilyn) It stays thereno, it goes to your tummy, then it goes to your feet and it stays there No, it goes to your bottom How does it go from your stomach to your bottom? (Marilyn) More tubes Then it comes out of your bottom and into the toilet So does it go to your feet? (Marilyn)

NO they all said.


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As we were having this discussion, the children were representi ng their theories through drawing.

Brain Tube for food Heart Lungs Tummy with food in it

Bottom Poo coming out

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We revisited the digestive system. We looked at a reference book on the human body and the children noticed the intestines or wiggly tubes as they called them. We looked at our previous drawing of the digestive system and realised we had left the intestines out. The children decided to do another drawing and this time put in the food tube or oesophagus, the stomach and the intestines.

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The next day in our group time, we looked at our latest drawing of the digestive system and followed the path of the food down the oesophagus to the stomach, intestines and out of your body. One of the children asked, How does it (the food) turn into poo? It mashes up in your tummy Maybe it mixes up with water When you eat the food, it gets all poison and then turns into poo If we had poison in our body we would get sick and die Dribble has got lots of orange gooey stuff and it goes on your food once you swallow it Those are germs The vomit makes the poison Once when I had cordial I vomited, I was at my cousins house I had a sore tummy and then I did vomit Why do you think you vomit? (Marilyn) You ate too much sugar, juice What next: Our discussion finished but we will further discuss the digestive system and investigate chemicals in the body that help break down the food. 3/30/12

Further discussion on how the body works Children were reminded of the main points from our previous discussions. Blood can hurt you. Blood doesnt hurt you, it helps you get better, once you get the bandaid on, it starts working on getting itself back together. No, its the cut (that hurts you), the blood helps you. When theres a cut blood pushes the skin back and then it gets glued. When you eat, all the food goes to your blood and the blood feeds your brain. How does blood go through you body? (Marilyn) It comes from your heart and then it goes through blood tubes. Your muscles help you to move. I know what eyes are made of goo! If you watch too much television your brain gets all mushy. When you touch something a message goes to the other side. But what happens if you drink alcohol you fall down. Ive seen someone drink too much. If you drink too much beer you might die. 3/30/12

The children start to represent their thinking in this drawing.

This sends the messages to the rest of your body. The messages are stored

The heart sometimes it goes slow, sometimes it goes medium, sometimes it goes fast when you sleep.

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This group of children put the blood tubes (veins and arteries) throughout the body, making sure all parts of the body were receiving blood.

What next: We will revisit the circulatory system at a later date!

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I know how the brain talks to you, your


body is electric Its wrong, if you had electric wires and cut it you would zap, zap,zap Those messages are little electric wires in your head that plug into your brain. Once they get out of your head, they turn into blood tubes After lunch, the children returned to draw the electric system. We looked at our reference book and I showed them a picture of the nervous system with the brain, spinal cord and nerve endings. We talked about dendrites. The children could see that nerve endings go to all parts of the body. Warrens sore finger from his burn was a good example of showing how the nerve endings work!

The Electric system in your body

Its letting the boss of your body know if something is happening to youso your brain doesnt have a little computer in it! 3/30/12

Investigating our breathing we listened to our heartbeat while we were sitting inside, then we went outside for a run and had another listenwe found that the heart beats faster after exercise.

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The Breathing system


Everyone knows you can breathe in and out Breathing helps your body stay alive When you run your heart pumps faster, faster, faster Breathing helps you be calm We drew around Martins body and I suggested we draw the respiratory or breathing system. Does the air go down the same tube as the food? (Marilyn) Yes they all said. We then discussed how this would work, we referred back to the picture we had drawn of the digestive system which clearly showed the food tube leading to the stomach. Does the air we breathe in go to our stomach? (Marilyn) Some children thought it did they could feel their stomach get bigger when they breathed in. But then someone said: No, it goes to your lungs

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At that point we looked at some pictures of the body in our reference books and one of them clearly showed two tubes one leading to the lungs and the other to the stomach!

The children were asked to work in pairs to draw a skeleton of their choice. They were provided with a book which had pictures of various animal skeletons in it and they had the stick skeleton they had made to look at. The children had to work together to create their chalk drawings. This required lots of discussion about what to do next and lots of cooperation.

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A group project constructing a skeleton from clay. Children looked carefully at the pictures counting and measuring bones. Placing them in the correct position.

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This child is working on another group project where the children drew the brain, lungs, heart and intestines and glued them in place. Red and blue wool is used for the blood system.

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A close look at a real heart

Some wanted to touch it!

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Children working together, discussing, negotiating, sharing ideas, listening to each other and compromising.

Playdough was used to create the digestive system and brain.

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Presentation and Sharing of Childrens Learning In a group discussion, the children asked if they could show their parents what they had learned this term. There was documentation of their learning all around the room and I suggested we could just have a discussion like we always do and this would show their families how they learn at preschool. We invited families to come in at the end of a morning or afternoon session in the last week of term. The children were very relaxed and happy to share their learning in this way! Parents were very responsive and amazed at their learning and the way they articulated it.

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