Learning About Bones Activities for Kids and Free Skeleton Printable -

Have fun with your children learning about bones using our free printable skeleton, building with playdough, making a craft, and singing. Now when your kids see skeletons this Halloween they aren’t scared because they know we all have skeletons and they can even tell you all about them!

Learning About Bones

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We have been singing and dancing to the Youtube video Shake Dem Halloween Bones by the Kiboomers.

We went on a field trip which has an exhibit of bones and joints to explore. The kids loved seeing a skeleton on someone else’s wall too! We didn’t go into much detail about joints. We located them in our body and moved around using the joint we found.

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Skeleton Bones Activity: I Have Bones

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Supplies:

Large paper

Pencil

Paint (optional)

Paint brush

Skeleton Bones Printable (available to download for free at the end of this post)

Directions:

1. Have child lie down on the paper and use the pencil to trace around them. My daughter couldn’t stop giggling as I traced around her because it tickled.

2. Paint the paper, filling in the outline. My daughter chose red paint to look like blood. A bit gross and totally awesome because she totally got into the spirit of this activity! You could skip painting, but I do recommend using a thick pen to outline the body. Once our paint was dry we hung it on the wall to do the rest of the activity.

3. Talk about bones and place them on the paper. As we discussed each bone we pointed to it in our body and poked ourselves so we could feel it. My daughter also liked putting the skeleton piece on her body before sticking it to the paper. We talked about what the bone helps us do (ribs protect our heart and lungs, leg bones help us stand and walk, fingers help us pick up things…).

Have fun with your children learning about bones using our free printable skeleton, building with playdough, making a craft, and singing.

Skeleton Playdough Activity: Why do I Have Bones?

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Supplies:

Playdough

Straws

Scissors

Directions:

Have child build to bodies using straws in one to represent bones, and no straws in a second one to represent a body without bones. If your child is having difficulty building a body you could have them build a leg with and without a straw to complete the activity.

We found it easiest to make each part, stick a straw into it, and then cut the straw leaving extra length to attach it together.

After our playdough creations were made we tried to stand each of them up. Our boneless playdough body fell over and felt weak, but our playdough body with straw bones stood tall and felt strong even when we squished them with our hands.

Skeleton Bones Craft

The directions for our skeleton craft can be found here: SKELETON BONES RIPPED PAPER CRAFT

Free Skeleton Printable

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Now I know the printable skeleton bones aren’t completely correct but I didn’t have time to draw a skeleton so I worked with what I could find making sure the printable had 3 leg bones and 3 arm bones instead of just two–which seems to be typical for available graphics. With that said, it worked great for my kids and looks perfect hanging on our wall for Halloween. Another note: I made the skull a bit larger than the one we used because our skeleton looks a bit pin headed :).