The Human Body

Literary Focus UnitBy

Megan Wilson

Literature Selection

The Human Body By Steve Parker Human Body By Caroline Bingham

by I Skeleton By Ian Thompson, Steve Parker

Why don’t haircuts hurt? By Melvin and Gilda Berger

Literature Selection

• The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body by Joanna Cole

• Panoramas Human Body by Nicholas Harris

• Inside Your Outside: All About the Human Body Tish Rabe and Aristides Ruiz

• Head to Toe Science by Jim Wiese

Theme Study

• Students will take place in a thematic unit on the human body. This unit will integrate reading and writing with social studies, science, mathematics, art , music, and physical education

• Students will develop an understanding of the human body and its many functions, such as digestion, and the major bones in the body.

Language Arts: Reading Activities

• Students will read various types of literature on the subject of the body. They will read in groups or I will have the books on tape.

• Students will read their “amazing me” poems out loud to the class.

• Teacher will read aloud to the class from the magic school bus .

• Student will read out loud about how to keep their body safe.

Language Arts: Writing Activities

• Students will write down notes or interesting facts in their human body note book.

• Students will be writing a “Amazing me” poems• Students will be writing letters to themselves

stating how they are going to do a better job of keep themselves healthy and protected.

• Students will be writing the bones of the body as a class.

Language Arts: Speaking Activities

• Students will be hosting a debate on ways that they could keep themselves safe.

• Students will talk about the adventures of Miss Frizzles class.

• Students will be reading aloud their “Amazing Me” poems to the class.

• Students will be reading in groups out loud various book on the human body.

Language Arts: Listening Activities

• Students will be listening to the video on digestion and safety.

• Students will be listening to the human body song by Tree House Rock.

• Students will listen to what their peers have discussed in the debate.

• Students will listen to their classmates “amazing me” poem.

Language Arts: Viewing Activities

• Students will view different bones of the body.• Students will view the magic school bus movie

on the human body. • Students will view pictures in their textbooks

and various book on the human body.• Students will watch a video on what the

digestive system entails. • Students will watch a video on safety

Language Arts: Visually Representing Activities

• Students will display their “Amazing Me” Poems in an artistic fashion.

• Students will be labeling the human body.

• Students will be Making and labeling their own human bodies bones

• Students will be listing how they are going to be safe in a creative way.

Science Activities:• Students will be labeling the human body. • Students will be listing the functions of major

bones.• Students will be identifying the digestive system.• Students will identify what types of foods our

body can digest easier and some that take a long time to digest.

Mathematics Activities

• Students will figure out how long it takes the digestive system to digest their food.

• Students will figure out how tall they are my using a measuring stick.

• Students will measure their heads and figure out the circumference and radius then do a whole class graph to find the average head size.

• Students will graph the classes height and length of forearm and compare the correlations.

Social Studies Activities

• As a class we will discuss different types of eating disorders and how to prevent them from occuring.

• Students will discuss the different evolutionary changes humans have made through time.

• As a class we will discuss what body image means and how the benefits of having a good self body image are.

• Students will have a surprise guess a Gastro intestine doctor to talk about the digestive system and how to keep a healthy system.

Music and Art Activities

• Students will be decorating their “Amazing me” poems.

• Students will be tracing their body outlines • Students will learn the “human body song”• Students will Decorate their Statement about

being healthy to look like the declaration of independence.

Physical Education Activities

• Skeleton relays where students compete to be the first team to have a full skeleton of correct bones.

• Blind fold dash where students lead each other to try and complete the skeleton.

• Simon says with bones where bones will be scattered all over the gym and students have to run to find the correct one in time.

• Capture the foot which is capture the flag but the flag is a foot bone.

Technology

• Students will use a varity of websites to complete the labeling of their bones/ skeleton traces.

• Students have the opportunity to play the DK game on the computer called The Human Body.

• Students will look up online to find the cons of smoking/drinking.

• www.digestion.com• www.humanbody.com/gov• www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus

Language Arts Strategies

• Activate background knowledge: students will think of prior knowledge they already know on the topics of digestion and the bones of the body.

• Group discussion: students will talk about ways of keeping their bodies safe.

• Connecting: students will use knowledge learned to understand how the human body has adapted to its environment.

• Visualizing: students will visualize what their body's look like on the inside by making their self trace and labeling bones.

• Revising: students will have to do drafts for their “amazing me” poems and also their statement of being healthy.

Language Arts skills

• Language: students will be able to understand and talk about how to keep their bodies safe.

• Comprehension: students will understand that if they see an image of the digestion system they are able to understand the steps of the digestive cycle and what happens to food after they swallow.

• Vocabulary: students will be able to define different parts of the body.

• Memorization: students will be able to identify different bones in the body.

Grouping Patterns

• Large Groups: Grand conversations, viewing videos, team building, skeleton relays, capture the foot, debate, special guest, group comparisons of the head and forearm, discussion on self body image, Simon says, singing the body song.

• Small Groups: Peer reading, Sketch partner, Identifying parts of the body, internet partner, measuring body parts, revising poem and statement of health.

• Individual: Decorating poem and statement, labeling their body sketch, taking notes from special guest, writing important/ interesting facts about the body.

Time line of Literary Focus UnitMonday Wednesday Friday

Morning• Language arts: Start with

reading and journaling about the human body

• Science: Learn about the bones of the body and digestive system

• Art: Work on trace of the body and labeling and sing songs to help learn parts of the body and the function.

Afternoon• Math: Measure the

different lengths of the body i.e. bones

• Social Studies: Discuss the importance of a good self image, and how the human body adapts over time.

• P.E: Skeleton relay to help learn the parts of the body.

Time Line of Literary Focus Unit Tuesday Thursday

• Language Arts: Listening to books read aloud, debate/discussion, journaling on KWL chart Begin work on “Amazing me” poem.

• Art/Music: Draw the digestive system on self sketch.

• Math: Measure the circumference of head and Radius, Compare forearm length, make chart graph as a class.

• P.E: Simons says and capture the foot.

• Social studies: watch the magic school bus video and have a discussion with diagram as to where the class is in the digestive system.

• Science: Students will learn what foods the body can digest with ease. Identify the parts of the digestive system with basic understanding with what its functions are.

Assessment

• Have them host a debate about ways to stay healthy• Annotated rubric will be used to asses math and

science activities. • Assessment of poem and statement of health will be

on the finished product. • Peer assessment / peer conferences with partner

assessment using a rubric they can self grade each other.

• Teacher/ student conferences where we discuss parts of the focus unit they are struggling with.