Has your preschooler been asking a lot of questions about their body lately? Looking for some simple anatomy activities to teach your preschooler all about the human body?
It’s incredibly important to teach children about their bodies and how to take care of them. This knowledge will help them stay healthy and also help them to communicate more clearly with us when something is wrong.
So, what kind of simple activities can you do with your preschooler in order to teach them about what’s inside their body?
In this post, we’ll cover 10 different human body activities that are perfect for preschoolers.
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Preschool Human Body Activities
Organ Matching
Matching is a crucial early math skill that preschoolers need to master. It helps develop a range of thinking skills and builds the foundation for later mathematical and logic concepts. It’s also a great way to introduce new vocabulary.
For this matching activity, we purchased the Safari Ltd. Human Organs TOOB and had the children match the organs to the corresponding cards we got as a free printable over at Living Life and Learning. As they would match them up, we would go over the name and function of each organ.
Pre-Writing with Human Organs
It’s always a good idea to include some type of writing or pre-writing activity when planning a preschool unit study.
For your human body unit, you can print and laminate these pre-writing organ cards, and have your preschooler trace the letters with a dry-erase marker. This way, they can use them over and over again. You could also have your preschooler draw the letters out in a sand tray.
Magnetic Human Body Play Set
If you’re looking to introduce the very basic systems in our bodies, then the magnetic human body play set by Melissa & Doug will be right up your alley. This hands-on activity is perfect for teaching youngsters that their bodies are comprised of bones, organs, a cardiovascular system, muscles, and skin. This was by far both of my kids’ favorite activity in our human body unit study.
Layered Anatomy Puzzles
Another fun way to teach your preschooler about the different systems in their body is with these layered anatomy puzzles by Kidzlane. They cover the skeleton, organs and cardiovascular system, muscles, skin, and add some clothes on top for extra fun. The puzzles are also self correcting and anatomically correct.
Stethoscope Fun
What kid doesn’t have fun with a stethoscope?
We picked up a $5 stethoscope that actually works off Amazon and made a mini lesson out of it. We read all about the heart and what it does through various books, including Usborne’s First Encyclopedia of the Human Body and Hear Your Heart. Then the kids played with the stethoscope for quite some time.
Heart Pump Model
Another excellent activity for teaching preschoolers about the heart is to recreate this simple heart pumping model.
It’s a great simple experiment that will leave your little knowing that the heart pumps blood throughout the body. This one was a huge hit with my kids. We had to do it multiple days in a row, because they kept asking for it.
To create this model, we followed the directions from Team Cartwright, but excluded the second cup and just let the “blood” pump straight into our container.
Blood Model in a Bottle
After learning that the heart pumps blood, it only seems natural to start discussing what blood is made of and what its function is.
For this activity, we started out by reading the book “A Drop of Blood,” and then we went on to create a blood model in a bottle.
We used cinnamon candies to represent red blood cells, marshmallows for white blood cells, vegetable oil for plasma, and white sprinkles to represent platelets. We tried our best to keep the component proportions in line, but it certainly wasn’t perfect.
Q-Tip Skeleton Craft
Go deeper into bones with this q-tip skeleton craft.
Print off the free template from Teaching in the Tongass and be sure to cut up plenty of q-tip pieces in advance. Your preschooler will color their bowties and then glue on all their “bones.”
We kept the “bones” to a minimum with the kids being so young, but you could certainly do more if your littles are up to it…over 200 even!
Human Anatomy Apron
Wear your insides on the outside with this neat anatomy apron.
This is such a fun way for your preschooler to learn all about the organs that are inside their body, including their names, shapes, and locations. The model includes the heart, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, lungs, kidneys, liver, esophagus, trachea, and bladder.
Each plush organ is removable and secured by velcro. Underneath, you’ll find the name and outline of the organs on the apron.
My 5 Senses Tray
Exploring the 5 senses is a great addition to any human body unit. Pick up a 5 senses book, like “You Can’t Taste a Pickle with Your Ear,” from your local library and make a 5 senses tray to go with.
Here’s a few ideas on what you can include in your tray:
- Sight: Mirror, flashlight, photographs, drawings
- Sound: Small musical instruments, rattle, beads in a small container
- Smell: Spices, such as cinnamon, garlic, basil, rosemary, etc.
- Taste: Blueberries, peanuts, pretzels, lemon, marshmallows
- Touch: Play dough, rocks, small piece of felt
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Human Anatomy Fun
It’s so important to understand how your body works and how to take care of it. Even from such a young age, we can teach preschoolers the ins and outs of the human body.
There are tons of anatomy activities that are perfect for preschoolers, including magnetic play sets, anatomy aprons and puzzles, a 5 senses tray, and matching organs. You can make simple models to represent our blood and how the heart pumps blood, and you can also just play “doctor” with a stethoscope.
With these hands-on activities, your preschooler will have such a better grasp of what’s in their body and how their body works.
What About You?
What kind of activities have you done in a human body unit study? Share your favorite anatomy activities in the comments below and be sure to share this post with other homeschool moms and dads.