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Brilliant bodies

This is an activity in which children learn about nutrition and build a body. It is suitable for ages 8 to 13. It is designed to be run as a two hour workshop, but each of the four activities could also be run individually. The hair, senses and bones activities could be run as a one hour workshop.

Activities

  • Hair
  • Senses & Reactions
  • Bones
  • Immune System.

Materials

  • Plasticine
  • Potato head accessories
  • Paper bags
  • Activity materials
  • Nutrients handouts.

The workshop

Start by discussing nutrition as a group. Children could use play food to choose a meal as part of this discussion. Introduce the idea that what we eat affects our bodies.

Students should make a plasticine body for the body parts to be attached to in the activities. Hair is attached in the hair activity, facial features in the senses activity and limbs in the bones activity.

Making hair

  1. Set up the table with beads, pipe cleaners and a couple of example pieces of hair
  2. Ask children to choose their colours of beads and which hair type they would like to make as shown on the instruction sheet
  3. Help them twist one end of the pipe cleaner so the beads stay on
  4. Once they have made the pieces of hair, help them to poke their hair in to the head of their figure.

Materials

  • Beads
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Hair instruction sheet
  • Hair background info sheet.

 

Senses and reactions

  1. Set up the table with a ruler per pair
  2. Ask for a volunteer to help you demonstrate dropping and catching the ruler
  3. If you have a whiteboard, you could create a leaderboard of reaction times
  4. Talk about the effect of using different senses eg. hearing rather than sight.

Materials

  • Rulers
  • Whiteboard and pens (optional)
  • Senses & Reactions instruction sheet
  • Senses & Reactions background info sheet.

Bones

  1. Give children a couple of minutes to do the picture (first six) questions
  2. Then give them ten minutes to do as many of the remaining questions as possible
  3. They should find the answers from the information sheets as quickly as they can
  4. Help them swap sheets and mark their answers.

Materials

  • Quiz sheets
  • Pens
  • Timers
  • Information sheets
  • Bones background info sheet
  • Bones instruction sheet.

Immune system

  1. Practice the origami beforehand
  2. Show the children the antibody and virus and explain how they work as part of the immune system
  3. Help them follow the British Society for Immunology instruction sheet
  4. Help them put together the  virus units to form one large virus as a group.

Materials

  • Squares of paper
  • BSI Instructions
  • Immune system background info
  • Immune system instruction sheet.

Top tips

  • Use the background info to introduce each activity before the children start
  • Adapt additional info given to the age of the children
  • Children can take their figure home in a paper bag
  • Be ready to answer lots of questions!