2nd Grade Specials
NFS Curriculum Update :: December, 2014
Second graders have started their "mini medical school" unit. At the start of each class, students play “Esquelito Says," our version of Simon Says, but with the scientific names for the bones being used and practiced. Each week a new term will be added. We started this unit sharing something we know about how the inside of their bodies work. Students were introduced to the skeletal system by drawing their hands and trying to feel and count their bones. Then we viewed a hand x-ray and counted the 26 bones in the hand. We put together a skeleton puzzle and viewed what the skeleton looks like as a whole. This week we will continue with the circulatory system, talking about what the circulatory system does in the simplest of terms. Students learn that the heart pumps blood and that it is a muscle. They have the opportunity to listen to their heart and their partner’s heart with a stethoscope. Students conclude learning about the circulatory system by recording their resting heart rate and then running in place for 30 seconds to record the running heart rate. Then we move onto the digestive system while munching on snacks. A volunteer will come up and wear an anatomy apron with removable organs so we can see the path the food takes through the body. We’ll mime the path the food takes down the digestive system on our bodies. For added understanding, we unroll a string and see that the length of the digestive tract is really quite long. Finally, we explore the respiratory system. We start with some deep breaths and watch as our classmates' shoulders move. Then we pant like a dog to feel our diaphragm, the biggest muscle in our body, move. We learn that the lungs, diaphragm, and the trachea, another name for the windpipe, are the main parts of that system. We also watch several episodes of Schoolhouse Rock that focus on the body.