Many young children find the human skeleton scary, especially if the skeleton images they’ve seen are ones at Halloween. I love having a skeleton unit (mini or large) before Halloween to help ease any fears about skeletons and to give children a better understanding of skeletons in general.
Even though we have our monthly theme, I have a mini skeleton unit on our practical life/language/cultural shelf for my 3¾-year-old granddaughter, Zoey. She’s had a great time with the hands-on skeleton activities already!
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Activities for Our Montessori-Inspired Human Skeleton Shelf
Practical Life, Language, and Culture Shelf with Skeleton Work
You’ll have your shelves set up for whatever is best for your family or classroom. Because of limited space in my home, I have one shelving unit with my monthly themed activities and a mixture of curriculum areas in my other shelves.
Our mini skeleton unit is on our practical life/language/cultural shelves. Here are the skeleton activities I have:
- Wonderful You! book in book basket (a fun, pop-up Christian book we had from when my daughter, Christina, was little)
- Skeleton model from Melissa & Doug Magnetic Human Body Anatomy Play Set With 24 Magnetic Pieces and Storage Tray
- Basket with skeleton nomenclature cards from the Montessori at Home eBook and Materials Bundle (over $60 worth of materials available exclusively at Living Montessori Now for only $14.95!) If you only want the skeleton nomenclature cards, you can get those from Montessori Print Shop for $3.00.
- Janod Body Magnet puzzle (with skeleton pieces in a basket)
- Hape Your Body 5-Layer Wooden Puzzle Girl (There’s also a boy puzzle.)
- The Human Body Book (a favorite of Zoey’s since she was a toddler)
- Hape Your Body 5-Layer Wooden Puzzle Girl book (on middle shelf)
Shelf with Montessori-Inspired Skeleton Work
Zoey enjoyed all the activities, although she especially loves the 5-layer wooden puzzle girl. The Melissa and Doug magnetic puzzle and Janod magnetic puzzle are both fun, but only one layer can be used at a time. Zoey especially likes putting all the layers in the puzzle and talking about each body system.
Excited about Her Completed Skeleton Work
Zoey also loved using the skeleton nomenclature cards with the Janod skeleton puzzle. This puzzle is more challenging than the other two, so Zoey was especially proud of herself for putting it together without difficulty. Then I had her match the pictures of 9 of the types of bones in the skeleton. She was very proud of her work! I only gave her 9 types of bones for the first day, but I’ll be adding more as she becomes comfortable with all those names.
There are 25 pairs of cards, so these are great for a wide variety of ages! Older children can read the words to match the words with the correct bones. If you like to have younger children match the shape of the words, that’s another option, too.
Did Zoey find skeletons less scary by the time we finished our first day’s work? Yes, she did! She told her grandpa and parents that “skeletons aren’t scary. They’re just bones. But they’re a little bit scary.” LOL! Hopefully, they won’t be scary at all by the time Halloween arrives!
The Montessori at Home! eBook and Materials Bundle Available Exclusively at Living Montessori Now – with new, reduced price!!!
- Phases of the Moon (3-part cards & chart)
- Animals of the Continents
- Continents 3-Part Cards
- Land & Water Form Photo Book
- World – Control Maps, Masters and Labels
- Moveable Alphabet – Print – (includes full instructions)
- Sentence Cards – Step 1 – Set 1
- Word and Picture Cards – Step 1 – Read Pictures
- 1-100 Math Series
- Geometric Matching Cards
- Geometric Solids 3-Part Cards – Blue
- Skeleton Nomenclature Cards
- Tree Nomenclature Cards
- Phonics Sound and Picture Sorting
- Association of Objects
- What Does Not Belong
- The Five Senses
- Plant or Animal?
- Animals and Their Names
- Color Grading Cards
- Metal Insets – Shape Outlines
More Hands-on Fun with Montessori-Inspired Skeleton Activities
Free Skeleton Printables and Montessori-Inspired Skeleton Activities
Montessori-Inspired Skeleton Unit
Little Hands Learn has a wonderful anatomy unit with some amazing skeleton activities! I made the large, connected skeleton with my 4-year-old grandson, Caleb. He was sooo excited! We spent about 1½ hours making the skeleton, reading about the skeleton, labeling the large skeleton with little labels and control chart from the Little Hands Learn Anatomy unit, playing fun skeleton songs, and having Caleb dance with the skeleton! It’s perfect for Halloween, Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), and an anatomy unit. Right now, it’s on the wall for our after-Halloween Halloween party with Caleb and my grandddaughters.
Here’s a sweet video of Caleb his second day with the skeleton:
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Day of the Dead Skeleton Activities with Free Printable from Every Star Is Different
Skeleton Products from Montessori Services
Skeleton Anatomy Books for Kids
Skeleton Science Products on Amazon
Human Body and Kids’ Halloween Activities Pinterest Boards
You’ll find more human skeletal system activities of all kinds on my Human Body Pinterest Board as well as more Halloween skeleton activities on my Kids’ Halloween Activities Board.
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Hello Deb,
I just loved these skeleton activities, thank you so much for share, keep it up.
Rebecca, UK