Dem Bones

With Halloween coming up, the girls have been learning “spooky” songs in their school music class lately.  Briana told me that one such song was about bones and how they make you move around.  I laughed because she somehow thought bones were like ghosts or something and they pushed you all day.  I then explained to her that bones are under our skin to protect our organs, hold us up, and let us move.   I had the girls touch their knees.  See how hard it is under there?  That is a bone.  We poked our arms and feet for bones and discovered our skull in our head.  But there was a lot of skepticism, so this week I told the girls we’d learn more about bones.

I figured that I might as well start with bone songs since that’s what sparked their interest in the first place. 

I thought that I knew two songs about bones, but upon looking up all of their lyrics online, I discovered that they were actually the same song.  ‘Dem Bones’ is the chorus of the “Foot Bone’s Connected to the…” song.  If you’re interested in pop culture history of the song, an African-American author and songwriter named James Weldon Johnson wrote it.  The lyrics are based on Ezekiel 37:1-14 from the Bible wherein the prophet visits the Valley of Dry Bones and prophesies that they will become alive by God’s command.  Since Briana just started Sunday School last week I tell her that the song is based on a story from the Bible, and I explain the story.

Original Version from http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/games/songs/childrens/bonesmid.htm

E-ze-kiel cried, "Dem dry bones!"


E-ze-kiel cried, "Dem dry bones!"


E-ze-kiel cried, "Dem dry bones!"


Oh hear the word of the Lord.

(Tune ascends up in half steps, as in music.)

The foot bone con-nected to the (pause) leg-.bone,


The leg bone connected to the (') knee bone,


The knee bone connected to the (') thigh bone,


The thigh bone connected to the (') back bone,


The back bone connected to the (') neck bone


The neck bone connected to the (') head bone


Oh hear the word of the Lord!

Dem bones, dem bones gon-na walk a-roun'


Dem bones, dem bones gon-na walk a-roun'


Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun'


Oh hear the word of the Lord.

(Tune descends down in half steps and we retrace the body.)

The head-bone connected to the neck-bone,


The neck-bone connected to the back-bone


The backbone connected to the thigh-bone


The thighbone connected to the knee-bone


The kneebone connected to the leg bone


The leg bone connected to the foot bone


Oh hear the word of the Lord.

While we sing we touch the part of our body that we are singing about.  The kids ask about other bones and learn that there are no eye bones, and the chest bone is called the ribcage, and that even though nails are hard, there are not bones, but keratin, a protein.

We also amend the song to add other things than walk to the chorus so dem bones, dem bones gonna jump around/ touch the ground/run around/anything else we felt like doing.  The kids love the song, but apparently hate my dancing to it.  So after a while of singing, I tell the girls that we are going to make a skeleton and hang it up for Halloween.

But first we need to know what bones we have.

Briana was awake while I looked for images of a labeled skeleton to print out a couple of days earlier and she kept saying, “that one is not pretty.  Let’s learn on a prettier one.”  I thought we were doomed, but she manages to find a pretty, but appropriately labeled skeleton via Google images.

http://www.encognitive.com/images/skeletal-system.jpg

  

I showed the girls the labeled skeleton picture.  We started with the toes, or phalanges bones and I pointed to the bone on the picture, had them find the bone on their body and then told them the real name for that bone.  The kids thought it was neat that they were made up of “so many littler bones”.

The same day that Briana and I printed out the pretty skeleton, we also found a cute-ish skeleton in parts at: http://printables.kaboose.com/img/printables/SKELETON.pdf

I print it out on thick cardstock paper that was…what else…bone colored. 

(Like the kid colored placemats?  It’s a great way to keep working on letter and number recognition for the kids (especially Abby at this point), but since I just bought them at the store, that’s not really creative and therefore blogworthy.  Get the erasable kind, like we have if you get them.  That way you can do it over and over again.)

Today I cut out the pieces to make 2 skeletons – one per kid.  As I lay them out in random order and let the kids sort them.  The kids also pick out what color brads they want to use to connect the leg bone to the backbone, for instance.  For Briana, we go from the bottom up (foot bone to head bone). 

Abigail goes from the head bone down.  I pick up the head bone and, singing ‘Dem Bones’, ask Abby, “The head bone’s connected to the…”  “Backbone!” Abby says, followed quickly by, “I will do it.  I will do it by myself!  I put a brad in the headbone.”  Aaaahhhh!  Abby proceeds to almost swallow a brad trying to attach her own headbone.  I grab it, panic a little, and tell her sternly that we DO NOT put the brads in our mouths.  Then I re-explain that Abby needs to say what bone connects to the bone in my hand, find the skeleton’s picture of that bone on the table and hand it to me.  Then POINT to that bone on her body before MOMMY attaches it with the brad she picked.

Bree asks why we used brads instead of glue.  I tell her that in our bodies the bones are stuck together with ligaments so that bones can move around next to each other so that we can move.  Since we want our skeletons to move too, we needed brads.

The kids survey their final creations and are excited.  So am I.  Our homemade skeletons look as good as any you can buy in a pop-up Halloween store.  

They start dancing with their skeletons, so we sing Dem Bones and dance and point to the bones that we are singing about.

Bree trips and complains that she hurt her tarsals, pointing to her ankles.  She says her skeleton also got hurt, pointing to the crack in his head.  “His head got hurt.  He needs Dr. Abby.” was Abby’s automatic response.  She is always Dr. Abby if anyone at home, or apparently at school, gets hurt.

The kids choose to hang the finished masterpieces in the hallway festively. 

Then we run outside and finish our Fall decorating by staking two scarecrows, that I picked up at Michael’s when I got the brads, in the yard.

Our afternoon of decorating has tired our bones out.  Bedtime!

<3 Pedigreed Housewife