Yarn Brains
Halloween has us electrified! For us, it's a time to commune with neighbors and share in our mutual love of revelry. Every year, since the birth of our first child, we have worn family costumes. Dreaming up costumes for Halloween is one of my favorite parts of the season. I love using the ubiquitous good-pad pun for our family costume concept and I plan to pay the children in houses and solid gold in hopes they will agree to my ideas forevermore. But as much as we wish to dress in costume every second of every day, we also must sneak in some time for #homeschooling.
In the interest of teaching anatomy and developing a cohesive craft meets science plan for group school day, I decided to teach the kiddos the four lobes of the brain using yarn! I thought this might be a fun #learning activity for Halloween because, well, somehow brains are gruesome? (Honestly, not sure about that one.) Frankly, I think most of us would agree, brains are absolutley incredible. This activity will hopefully inspire kiddos to see the beauty in the brains.
For this activity, I simply google searched "brain" and free handed a copy onto the printed side of cardboard. I cut out the brain and used a pencil to define the 4 lobes on the unmarked side of the cardboard. During class, I pointed to the lobe and asked the kids to fill in the area with school glue. I chose four colors of yarn to distinguish each lobe. I precut the yarn and handed the children each color as we discussed the lobe.
What do you think? Read on for materials and step by step instructions.
Gather:
*4 skeins of yarn in distinctly different colors
*School glue
*Cardboard
*Scissors
*Pencil
Create:
1. Search images of brain or use this one from https://healthiack.com/encyclopedia/simple-brain-diagram.
You can save this image to your computer and print it off to create a template. Otherwise, freehand the image onto the printed side of your cardboard. Cut it out.
2. Use a pencil to roughly draw in the lobes. Label each lobe.
3. Use glue to fill in one lobe at a time. Apply yarn to resemble grey matter. Repeat until all four lobes are filled. This is a great time to discuss the function of the lobes, the cerebellum and the brain stem too!
