Broken Bone Project

The project will be broken down in to different phases, phase one will consist notes taken by the teacher as she observes the children role playing with items brought in to the classroom like crutches, braces for knees, wrists, ankles, slings for arms, x-rays, etc. With the information gathered by the teacher, together the class will create a web to visualize the possibilities for the developing topic. As a whole group the children will tell their personal stories about their experiences or someone they know experiences they have had with a broken bone. With these stories in mind the children will draw pictures of what they think their bones look like and share their drawings with the class. With the sharing of each student’s drawing any questions

Notes will be taken of the reality of their predictions and what they found. With continued interest on the subject, by taking this project out of the classroom the students will design a form to conduct a survey of the other classrooms to see if any of the other students currently have a broken bone. This would also lead to phase two of the project; a field trip. Going out in to the community to visit a doctor’s office which has physical technology used when examining bones in our bodies such as x-ray equipment, machines for Computed Tomography (CT scans) and machines for preforming Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRIs) and micro scopes to examine slides with blood samples which would relate back to what the children found inside the broken bones. The children will each have a clip board with a pencil and paper to draw what they are viewing and or take notes of their own. After a demonstration of how these machines work, we will visit the radiation department to view the x-rays that have just been taken and then meet with the doctor to ask questions they may

The project will continued by the students becoming their own bone experts. This includes writing or drawing about their experiences so far and sharing it with the class, creating skeletons and looking up and naming as many of the bones as they can, using large card board boxes to create the x-ray, MRI and CT scan machines with actual x-rays taken while of the field trip, materials added to the dramatic play and math areas for measuring each-other’s bones for comparison, adding different types of bones in the sensory table to explore and invite an orthopedist in to the classroom to demonstrate how to cast an injured area. Following the visit from the orthopedist the class will refer back to the list of questions they first made and see how many of them we can answer. Phase three involves what we all can do to make sure our bones stay healthy by checking food and drink labels, creating healthy menus, finding ways to get enough of calcium especially for those who cannot tolerate diary, then move on to physical ways to stay healthy and protect our bodies from getting injured with activities