Funny bones

We are seriously into bones lately.  Just branching off ever so slightly from what we have been doing in science, we are taking a closer look at the topic of vertebrates using this book specifically:

I am finding the book to be an interesting extension to our vertebrate study, in that it contains complete and very hands-on lesson plans, photocopiable sheets and mini reports to be written.  Each lesson (so far) has been easy to implement so that works for us.

The first lesson called for an examination of real animal bones, mostly to identify where the backbone is located in each.  That was a great opportunity for me (as the head chef of the family) to find out which types of animals we could cook and have all the bones intact after the meal.  We settled for haddock and quail.

Once we have played around with the bones and marveled at the unique skeletonal design of each animal, we went on to more backbone identification on paper - on X-ray sheets and worksheets.

The identification part was very obvious for Tiger, except when he was slightly surprised to see how complex the backbone of a snake is.  Although Tiger knew from previous lessons that snakes, being in the reptile group, are vertebrates, he was still baffled by how they are able to slide around and coil themselves up.  This point of misunderstanding was quickly clarified when I took a picture of Tiger's spine to show him that how the vertebral column is actually made of interlocking bones that allow for movements.

As usual, Tiger read some books that are related to each of the 5 vertebrate groups:

None of the books above pleased Tiger as much as the animal jokes books, which resulted in my having had the pleasure of listening to 50 different versions of "Knock, knock.  Who's there?"

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can visit to see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked to the Homeschool Showcase #95.