Fun with Dr. Bonyfide: a Human Body Homeschool Unit Study
Our family has discovered that following a Unit Study style plan for science is a good fit for us. We can pick an area and dive as deep as we want for as long as we want into something, and then move on to another area of science. We tend to focus on 4-6 different topics during the year and revisit them every couple years.
One challenge I have found with studying science this way is finding materials and activities that are interesting for my active learners but also cover the details we are wanting to learn. The Dr. Bonyfide presents: books totally fill the need in a human body homeschool unit study!
The Dr Bonyfide book set from Know Yourself Academy is a 4 volume activity book set that introduces the student to the human skeleton bone by bone. It is part of Timberdoodle’s science curriculum for 3rd -6th grade. Each Timberdoodle full grade pack includes one volume. The full set is available separately as well.
A Homeschool Human Body Unit Study all about Bones!
Each volume of the set covers the bones in a specific part of the body.
- Book 1: Bones of the Hands, Arm, Shoulder
- Book 2: Bones of the Rib Cage and Spine
- Book 3: Bones of the Foot, Leg and Pelvis
- Book 4: Bones of the Head, Face and Neck
These are open and go activity books. There is no prep work involved to use them with your children: you just decide how many pages to assign for the day and hand it over and let them work.
You might also have to take the book away because they find it so interesting. My 9 year old found the book before I planned to give it to him and wouldn’t put it down. He liked the finger spelling activity in book 1 and the 3-D glasses.
The pages are not full of text which is nice. The illustrations are presented in a variety of ways including photographs of x-rays of the bones being described. Each book includes a pair of 3-D glasses. There are pages which require the glasses to reveal the information and often a fun joke! It is a simple and fun way to make the workbook a little more hands on than just worksheets.
While these books only teach the skeleton system of the body, they also provide an excellent jumping off point to discuss the related systems of the body to the different bone sets and an introduction to some basic Latin as they learn the names of each individual bone.
Will Dr. Bonyfide work for Outside the box kids?
Kids who get fixated on special interests and enjoy anatomy will enjoy these books they are engaging and written for kids but go deeper than any other book I have seen for this audience. Parents who know what it is like to keep providing with new information in an age appropriate way will be excited to find this resource.
Kids who struggle with handwriting skills like dysgraphia will be glad to see the white space throughout the Dr. Bonyfide books. Timberdoodle assigns the books for 3rd-6th grades. Even as a 6th grader there is large lines and text boxes to write your answers on the page. My 6th grader who still uses primary ruled paper for many assignments would be able to confidently fill out this book without getting frustrated with the writing space.
