2008-09: The Human Body

This year the entire school studied the Human Body. Usually each class studies a different topic. After looking back over the past seven years and all the different themes we have taught, we became inspired to try something new.

We began our year by creating what we called “families.” These were groups of 6 children of all ages, with an older child as the head of the family, along with a teacher “mentor.”

The first topic was the question, “What is a body?” Nature was our field of study to answer this question. (for example: the earth is a body, bodies of water, or a mountain or an animal or the air……) Each family had a list of questions to answer, as well as to add to. (for examples: What are bodies for? How do they move? What can they do?) These questions were answered at the end of 3 weeks by using a variety of mediums (art, music, movement, words both spoken and written, and theater) in some kind of presentation for the whole school. Creating families was also a good way to have all the children get to know each other to start off the school year, and throughout the year we came back to these families for special projects.

The in-depth study of the body took place in the different classrooms, according to age. Our goal was that children understand how their bodies work, how to care for their bodies, what balance means and that what is internal in us is also reflected externally. Our bodies are only a microcosm of the universe and how it operates and does or does not stay healthy.

Here are a few of the ways we studied the human body throughout the year:

K-1st graders traced their bodies and as they learned about different organs, they drew it and pasted it onto their paper bodies. In the end, they had life sized bodies to hang up at home!

The 2nd-4th grade class studied all the organs and then each child picked on to research and write a report on. Through this process they learned all aspects of report writing. They also created organs using a variety of mediums, depending on their personal creativity. These were presented to the class.
They had a physical therapist come to the class and teach them different muscles and how they work.

The 5th-8th grade classes used games, science experiments and research to learn all the organs, systems and capacities in the body. They also combined with the 2nd-4th graders to create a living human body that demonstrated how all the organs work and interconnect. This was a great team project as they had to figure out how to communicate what they were doing to an audience.

A nutritionist came to school, and this engendered a lot of discussion around “healthy eating.” This class was in charge of baking bread for the entire year for the whole school, which was an incredible learning experience. The older class was also taught sex education by a parent, a mid-wife and a gynecologist.