Recently, if you were to stand in the Dream Space on a Monday or Wednesday, you might hear some lower school students sing about their love of their skeletal system: “I love my endoskeleton from my phalanges to my cranium…” Ironically, the singing isn’t coming from the music rooms, but next door in the lower school science room.

What you’re hearing are the 4th graders and they’re now in the midst of their deep dive into the world of the human skeletal system. The song might sound silly, but the students are gearing up for their first major science quiz in February. During the unit, students are learning to identify the major bones of the body. In the course of their unit study, the fourth grade osteologists are challenged to label diagrams of skeletons, identify the bones on a three dimensional model, and locate particular bones on their own body. The song serves as a mnemonic to help the students master the last skill.

During the skeleton unit, students will piece together a puzzle of the human skeleton, construct a model of a bone, and assemble a simple model of a leg that shows how muscles, bones, and connective tissue work together to facilitate movement. By the end of the unit, students gain an appreciation of how this important body system works to support their growth and survival, and how the skeleton’s structure connects them evolutionarily to other species in the tree of life.