An Interactive Way to Learn Human Anatomy

Since the most popular posts on Freely Educate are my anatomical printables, I thought I’d spend some time on human anatomy today. There are many “boring” ways to learn anatomy – in a 4″ textbook, for example, as I had to do for nursing school (the pictures were cool, though) – but these days, we can learn through interactive programs on websites. Do college kids have sore backs anymore? I wonder…

When to teach anatomy

We openly taught anatomy since toddlerhood at home, using posters of the skeletal system and a favorite interactive book on the entire anatomical system. This shocked a visitor or two, to see all the things represented, but I was in nursing, and my husband was in engineering – we’re sciency – so we just raised the kids with factual information at their fingertips. We didn’t talk about function necessarily, but we would call things by their name and answer any questions that arose.

Maybe that approach won’t work for you. That’s okay. That’s good! You’re the parent of your child; you know best what to do! You’ll still want to cover anatomy as part of science learning, and I have a few options no matter how you prefer to approach the subject.

HOW TO TEACH ANATOMY IN THE HOMESCHOOL

1. Have the students color and/or fill out anatomy Worksheets:

I created three free printable worksheets for our students and have them available for you. You’ll need to enter your email address to get them (as that’s the only way I could think of to keep spam bots from hacking away at them), but this does not sign you up for extra newsletters = you’ll only get one occasional email from me (I’m not very consistent; I average 1 per month but aim for 2).

The 3 free printable anatomy worksheets I have available are:

• Anatomy of the Human Skull Worksheet
• Anatomy of the Human Hand Worksheet
• Anatomy of the Human Foot Worksheet

2. Have the students self-learn anatomy through an Interactive Online Site:

I found a site for learning human anatomy. You can choose from these areas of the body:

• skeletal system
• muscular system
• cardiovascular system
• digestive system
• endocrine system
• nervous system
• respiratory system
• and others

Your student clicks on the human skeleton to identify the parts of the body represented.

Check out the Human Anatomy Explorer to see if it’s a good fit for your homeschool’s learning.

3. Study these really cool sketches of the human body, with and without labels.

I made these copyright-free images into printables for easy printing. (You’ll need to enter your email address to obtain them, so I can keep out spam bots, but it doesn’t sign you up to additional lists; just to the one list that I have here. )

I like them so much. They’d be awesome on the wall! Here are the vintage skeleton printables.

other resources for learning human anatomy

1. Here is the “favorite book” that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. It includes a little human body, and as you turn the page, you layer on body parts. For example, you’ll begin with a skeleton and information about the skeletal system. Turn the page, and another layer will go over the skeleton – the nervous system or muscular system, and so on. It’s pretty fun – view the book here.
2. Here is an anatomy book for toddlers. They really can’t hurt the book I mentioned above, but when it’s difficult for the older ones to share, hand the little ones this anatomy book. It’s made just for them.
3. And here is a little human that we always keep in our “school room” (a.k.a. “dining room”). It’s perfect for fidget-learning, or curiosity-learning.

Happy Learning!