Abstract:

Bring science closer to students in Primary and Kindergarten Education is the best way to raise future citizens with critical sense and research spirit. Those citizens are expected to do not just approve what is being told by the crowds, but to take the lead to investigate and find their own answers, always with methodological rigor and based on verifiable facts and experiences. To achieve this goal, children should perceive science as something natural and nearby, which allows them to explore and experiment in their local environment. According to this, teachers should address topics and questions adapted to children’s reality, according to the educational stage in which they are. Perhaps, it is easier to find subjects suited to Primary ages, but when concerning to Kindergarten teaching, students are just too young for many topics. These first years of science education could be dedicated to self-discovery as it is indicated in many curriculums. In this sense, health education and human body are two central themes that could be addressed in Kindergarten stage.

Within the frame of these subjects, in this work we present a didactical proposal related to bones in human body. The sequence of activities is thought for Kindergarten classroom of 4 to 6 years old, with the objective that children discover the functions that bones have in our organism and their characteristics, through the direct contact with them. To do this, we begin by identifying the different parts of the body (head, trunk and limbs) and see whether we can feel our bones in them, in an activity of self-discovery. Next, we introduce two fundamental questions: What are the bones for? And, are our bones alive? Once we are familiar with the bones of our body and their function, and not before, we will proceed to name some of those bones. Finally, we propose some activities in order to investigate whether other animals have bones like us or not. In this learning process, we should take into account children's spontaneous ideas, who probably do not consider bones as living tissue. In subsequent works, we will test the proposed sequence of activities in the real educational context.

Keywords:

Science teaching, Kindergarten education, bones, skeleton.