We began our study of the human body on the outside and worked our way in — as most Montessori learning goes! After learning all about The Outer Body, the skeletal system, the muscular system, and the nervous system, we continued our way down with the respiratory system.
One material that we’ve been using throughout this human body study is this felt human body! It comes with templates for the major organs plus the skeleton, so I separated each system out to present one at a time. The girls loved being able to see inside the lungs and naming all of the parts. L kept calling the bronchiole tree the “bronky old tree” and I loved it!
We also made some model lungs to see how they work with the diaphragm! We followed these instructions to make it, and it really helped us to see that when the diaphragm (the produce bag at the bottom) expands and moves upward, the lungs contract and exhale. When the diaphragm contracts and moves downward, the lungs expand and inhale!
We rely heavily on wonderful children’s books for all of our themed studies, and here are the books we used to study the respiratory system of the human body:
Take A Closer Look at Your Lungs, by Jane P. Gardner
You Breathe In, You Breathe Out, by David A. Adler
Stay tuned as we continue to dive deeper into our human body study!