Skeleton Creators

Age/Grade Appropriate

Kindergarten, Grades 1 through 2

Length

One hour

Concepts

Body construction

Shape and function

Fossils

Biology of humans and other animals

Background

The study of animal bones can offer an avenue into the children’s understanding of their own bodies. It’s easy to make comparisons if you think of each bone as an object with a job. That job is to support the frame of the animal, to give it shape, and to help it function. By using a set of bones, children can begin to associate bones with these functions and see how their own bones are used.

The most commonly thought of type of fossil is a fossilized bone. Badlands National Park was originally set aside to protect the millions of fossilized bones, shells, and other animals remnants of the Oligocene epoch, which occurred 26 to 37 million years ago. Scientists make their best guesses about how an ancient animal looked from its skeletal remains. We have no idea what they may have looked like as far as coloration, fur, or external organs. Scientists compare the fossilized remains to living descendants and assume that there are similarities.

Procedure

Have children ask their parents to save and clean bones from home. Have the students bring them all in two days before the lesson. You, as the teacher, should prepare a whole chicken as well to insure that you have enough bones.

Place all the bones in a pan of water and add about ¼ cup of bleach. Allow the bones to soak for one day. Rinse them and let them dry for one day.

Let the children sort the bones by shape. Can they find similar bones on the human skeleton? What do they think the various animals used the bones they brought in for? Have them feel their own bones. Compare the way ribs, vertebra, and leg bones feel. Show them the corresponding bones (from what you have).

Have the children arrange the bones into their own animals. Tape the bones one construction paper or cardboard to depict real or imaginary creatures. Paint or draw the rest of the animals’ bodies around the bones.

Set aside a few bones and press them into clay or plaster of Paris to form an impression. Impression can be made of single bones or of entire skeletons. This is actually a type of fossil called trace fossils. Trace fossils are impressions or casts of plants or animals or their footprints. Trace fossils can also be fossilized animal dung, plant seeds, and similar leavings.

Materials

Construction paper

Tape

Bones

Crayons

Picture of the human skeleton

Clay or plaster of Paris

Vocabulary

Fossil

Bone

Impression

Mold

Cast

Fun Facts

You can tell if a skull belongs to a meat eater or a plant eater by looking at the teeth and jaw. A plant eater has only one type of teeth that all look like molars. Their jaw is made of only one bone. A meat eater has canines, incisors, bicuspids, and molars for teeth and has several bones in its jaw.

Very few whole skeletons have been found in the Badlands. This is because many of the animals were crushed by layers of sediments or portions of their bodies were carried away by flowing water. Some were fed on by other animals.

A whole oreodont skeleton was found in the Badlands. It was a mother oreodont, pregnant with twins. It is on display in the Museum of Geology at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City.

Resources

Williams, Robert. Mudpies to Magnets

A Pre-school science guide full of experiments and activities.

Bowden, Marcia. Nature for the Very Young

Divided into seasonal activities. Many are specific to plants or animals not found in South Dakota but some can be adapted to our area.