For Elementary Aged Children
By Janny Jackson
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The opinions below are my own and are not sponsored by Heron Books.
As I mentioned in the 5th grade and 3rd grade curriculum blog posts for 2024-2025, we have yet to do a formal science curriculum. We focused more on unit studies on science subjects, which has worked out great for us.
It is really important to me that my big kids are learning and working together in school with group subjects, and with their age difference only being two years apart it has been fairly simple satisfying their learning needs with this method.
Finding a human body unit study took a lot of time and effort. There surprisingly are not a lot of options out there that satisfied the requirements I had for our home school. I’m happy to be able to say that I found the perfect Human Body unit study for elementary aged kids that not only checked all my boxes but went above and beyond my expectations.
It’s called The Fabulous Human Body by Heron Books.
The unit study package includes a beautifully illustrated lesson book with 13 chapters, 39 detailed cards that show illustrations of the parts of the body systems studied in the book, the student learning guide, a young scientist journal, and teacher resources that include the student test, answer key, and certificate of completion.
A couple things that really impressed me:
1. The lesson book is self-paced and meant to be child led. The lessons are written so that it was simple enough for my second and fourth graders to read through each lesson together with little to no help from me, and they were able to independently follow the steps in their student learning guide to do the activities required for each lesson.
2. There’s NO teacher guide! Everything you need is included in the package.
3. Their customer service is incredible. When I ordered the package, I added a note to have an additional young scientist journal. Not only did they fulfill my request, but they sent the order beautifully wrapped with a handwritten note of acknowledgment of my request and thanks for the order, as well as some fun little gifts I wasn’t expecting.
4. Even though the language of the lessons is simple enough for my little learners, the information presented to them was exactly on their level. It wasn’t too simple and yet not too complicated. It also wasn’t too wordy to where it would cause confusion, or they would get lost in the details.
5. It is open and go. No lesson planning required!
6. The activities are not only written, but there are also movement and hands-on activities included as well.
7. It is incredibly affordable making it accessible for all homeschool budgets!
Additional Resources Used
Even though this curriculum is complete in itself I wanted to make sure my kids received a well rounded experience with each lesson that included visual, auditory, and a hands-on experience.
These are some additional resources I purchased and/or used.
This human torso model was really helpful in learning about several of the systems including the digestive system and respiratory system.
The human skeleton model was fun to play around with when we went over the skeletal system.
This beautiful Human Body Encyclopedia has amazing illustrations for all parts of the body. I sat this out at the beginning of the lesson and used it to give the kids a more real life visual of each system they learned about. This book included additional information and pictures that were really helpful, and will be a resource we will use for many years to come.
The Usborne See Inside Your Body was my kid’s favorite book because they got to lift the flaps and read the information for each system. This book also was very on level for them and covered almost exactly what they had learned in each lesson.
Human Body Theater was my favorite book resource I found to support what they were learning in their human body unit. This book is written like a graphic novel, has tons of information that is written with age-appropriate wording, and was overall super fun, and funny, to read together.
You can’t go wrong with The Magic School Bus! Picture books are a really fun way to present information in a more relaxed and colorful format, and we enjoyed this book several times throughout this unit study.
Inside Your Outside is another great picture book that gives basic information about the human body. I would recommend this picture book for younger children, or to just read as a refresher in between lessons.
To add a visual experience to this unit study I found the Learn Bright YouTube channel that has amazing information for each body system that not only presents the information they will learn about but also engages with the kids asking questions to make sure they are comprehending the information presented.
How I Put It All Together
Like I said before this curriculum is complete in itself and no additional information or resources are needed.
I planned one lesson a week and this is what it looked like.
1. After completing our normal read alouds for the morning I introduced the body system for the week with a YouTube video.
2. Then I read a picture book or two, using either Human Body Theater, Magic School Bus or Inside Your Outside.
3. After that we moved to the table to start the formal lesson.
I started with a full review over names and definitions they had already learned using my own notes I had taken and the illustrated cards for visual reminders.
4. Then the kids did their lesson on their own for the new body system for the week as well as completing the activities from their student guide. We used the human body encyclopedia and body models if necessary during this time.
5. Once the lesson for the day was complete the kids had fun using the Usborne lift the flap book to review what they just learned.
And that was it!
The only thing I did not like about this unit study was the test, or exam as they call it. It is created in a written format, which for older kids might have been fine, but my fourth grader despises writing and I would not expect my second grader to answer 15 questions in a written format. I do believe it could be done orally but I wanted an option where I could quiz my kids separately to make sure they each comprehended what they learned, and to also give them options, like a multiple-choice test. So, I went online and created my own test using the original as a guide and that worked out beautifully for us.
Being able to confidently hand my kids their certificate of completion at the end of the unit, knowing they had mastered the information provided, made them feel very proud for all of the hard work they put into learning about the human body!
My biggest piece of advice for this unit study is review, review, review! Once we got towards the end it took some time to review all of the information learned, and we spaced it out over a couple days, but by then because we had reviewed so much over the course of the unit study, they basically had all of the definitions of the body systems and parts memorized and were able to recall from memory with little to no help.
The Fabulous Human Body is the perfect elementary introductory unit study to introduce the systems and parts of the human body in a fun and memorable way. I have complete confidence that as my kids get older and they learn even more about the human body, they will excel in whatever we choose to use next because of the wonderful foundation this unit study gave them.
I would love to know if you decide to try this unit study and if you loved it as much as we did!
Leave me a comment below. And as always, thanks for being here!