*I am using my affiliate links in this post. Disclosure policy is here.
One of the ways I’ve been homeschooling my boys over the years is to use dvds and have them illustrate what they’re learning on paper. They like to draw their own pictures (and they’re good at it 🙂 ). They usually draw while the dvd is playing, because they like to do it that way.
Homeschooling in the State of Ohio offers a lot of freedom but does dictate which subjects must be covered at minimum. Health is one of them. I thought I’d share how we’re studying that right now. And, how un-stressful this can be.
If you’re a homeschooling parent who feels like everything has to be done from an expensive commercially made workbook that you have to pay a lot of money for, well, think again – it does not.
So one day recently the boys and I walked into one of our local libraries to look for “school” dvds to use at home and I noticed that there were several on health available. Now, I can go online and search for these and request them to be sent to whatever library branch I want to pick them up at too. They just happened to be there today and so I decided – we’re studying health this week!
Even though a lot of dvds at our libraries don’t line up with our biblical worldview we still use many of them. My belief is you use the good and throw out the bad. This is part of real life and another lesson for my boys: not everyone will agree with your beliefs.
Library dvds I brought home to use:
- The Magic School Bus: Human Body
- Human Machine by EyeWitness DVD
- Bill Nye the Science Guy: Heart
- Bill Nye the Science Guy: Nutrition
We are also using the My Body book (grades 1-4) which allows teachers to make copies for their classroom. I actually bought this book “used” from another homeschooling mom and decided after reading the copyright terms to email the company just to be sure I had their permission to make copies (since I wasn’t the original purchaser). I was told I could do so for my boys.
FYI: Some copyright rules forbid copying permission to anyone outside of the original purchaser. I know we can “get away” with it, but that doesn’t make it okay or right to do.
Character is what you are when no one is looking. And besides that, the Bible says in James 4:17, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Illegal copying is a form of stealing.
The My Body book (under $10) by Teacher Created Resources has 40 pages of instruction and reproducible images to create a life size paper body. I can trace my son’s outlines on some large paper, hang them up on the wall and then as they color in the organs and parts we can glue them to the body. There are other ways to use this book as well.
A few other Teacher Created Resources available:
- The Human Body – grades 2-5
- Five Senses – grades 1-3
- Food – grades 1-3
- Science/Literature Unit: The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body grades 2-6
- Food and Nutrition – Pre K- Grade 1
FREE PRINTABLES
I’ve spent a lot of time this morning researching for good quality free printables. I think I found some reliable sources for you (and me!). There are more out there, just do the research. I found Pinterest (you can follow my Homeschooling Boards there) to be very helpful since there seemed to be less chance of getting spammy, bait ‘n switch links.
- A list of free human body printables from AtoZ Teacher Stuff.
- Human Body coloring pages from Crayola. We’ve actually used some of these in the past. I’ve even laminated one or two to keep for reference.
- HSLaunch has some really nice looking free printables here. In fact, I’m printing them as I type this 🙂 .
- Looks like lots of lesson plans, worksheets, & resources are to be found here at Science.LotsofLessons.com.
Oh- I forgot to originally include the following in this post! I bought this really cool human body study tool awhile back from Amazon. We’ve used it a little bit already. It’s a tabletop pocket chart with magnetic body. It’s really nice too.
It has cards with labels and pictures and magnetic parts too. This image doesn’t really do it justice so I may share it in another post one day.
