Learning about the body

Rosemary’s always been quite interested in the body – especially bones and skeletons. Last Wednesday, at school, they went to visit the Life Education Bus, where they got to find out about the human body. Apparently, she was answering lots of the questions and very interested.

That evening, she interrupted the episode of Duckula that she was watching to say, ‘I want to look at some finger bones.’ So, Chris sat her on next to him at his computer and they did a search for finger bones. They then spent about an hour and half looking at pretty much every bone in the body, then some brains and eye balls, then some animal bones…

On Friday, Chris took her to the library in the afternoon and they got the Little Genius book (pictured right), Bones, which she loved – as did we. It’s at just the right level and gives lots of information in a very accessible fashion. I read it to her that night and the next morning and then Chris read it to her again the next night. I think she’s probably been read it at least five times already and has looked through it on her own a good few times, too.

I love it when a child’s interest is sparked so much that they want to go off and find out about all sorts of related things. This is how I remember being as a child. And, while we were able to go to the library to find things out as a child (which we also did with Rosemary – see above), I think I would have really loved to have the internet available for such quick learning searches. At the moment, it’s mostly just looking at pictures of specific things – like bones, or toads, or ponds. As she gets older, I imagine we’ll be looking at sites where they have a bit of explanation, too.

Of course, though, there are occasional problems with using the internet for quick searches. This morning, Rosemary was getting dressed and asked ‘What are these hard bits on my booboos called?’ ‘Those are nipples, sweetheart.’ ‘I’d like to look at some nipples one day.’ ‘OK. What do you mean you’d like to look at some?’ ‘You know, mum, on the internet. I want to look at some nipples on the internet, like I looked at the brains.’

Oh. Bugger.

Do you use the internet for quick bouts of learning? Do you have recommendations for good sites for children? Are there any other book series that you’ve found good – non-fiction made accessible for the younger child? What kinds of learning or topics have got your children excited, recently? And, any ideas on how to search for nipples and only get some nice, clean anatomical pictures to look at?