My Kindergartener and I like to hang out and relax on the weekends, but I like to make sure that doing something fun doesn’t always involve endless hours of watching Minecraft videos on YouTube (his current obsession). Thankfully, I remembered that I received an Adventures in Science: Human Body kit from the kind folks at Silver Dolphin, so out it came. The first cheer came from me, when I realized that it’s a 6+ kit, not an 8 or 10+ kit, like most of them are: my kiddo could do this! The second cheer came from the kiddo, who saw a skeleton, because I’ve got that kid. (And I’m that mom.) We cracked open the box and went to it.
Adventures in Science: The Human Body, by Courtney Acampora, (Dec. 20017, Silver Dolphin Books), $21.99, ISBN: 978-1684121298
The box was full of stuff that would appeal to kids from ages 5(ish, my kiddo is going to be 6 in June) to about 10 or 11. There are two sheets of stickers; one sheet of bones, the other, of internal organs, including a set of “free play” stickers. The stickers go on a two-sided sheet with an outline of the human body; one side accommodates the organ stickers, one, the bones. There’s a separate bag for a snap-together skeleton model, playing card-sized flash cards about the body, and a booklet on the human body. Kiddo went to work on the sticker sheet, ASAP. The outlines are clear enough that he didn’t need my help at all! The only fiddly part came with the organ stickers, because so many overlap one another. We moved stuff around, covered some stuff up, and were pretty happy with the results.
I tried to read some of the flash cards to him as he was stickering, but realized that I was interested, but he was just sticking his little heart out, so I read them to myself and pointed out any cool stuff I came across. That worked for him.
Okay, next up, was the big guy: the skeleton. It’s a snap-together, and he got the skull, pelvis, and legs together pretty quickly. The really fiddly part came with the rib cage, spine, and arms. The rib cage is delicate, and the little spokes were giving us a hard time getting them in. We ultimately called in the big guns (Daddy), who made it work.
Overall, it was a fun hour spent with two cool hands-on crafts. He learned a couple of things, reinforced some facts he already knew, and ended up with a fun new skeleton to put in his room. I really like the flash cards and accompanying book, which gives a nice introduction to the human body for school-age kids; ideal for maybe around 7 or 8 years old. Younger kids will like the full-color pictures and graphics, and the book is loaded with fast fact Did You Know? boxes you can read to them. At $21.99, it’s a good gift for a curious kid. If you can get some fundraising money or program budget money together, this would be a great project for a small science group at your library; two or three kids can easily work together on one model and the posters. And they’d be pretty awesome to display.
Sticker Jigsaw: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, based on the novel by L. Frank Baum/Illustrated by Dinara Mirtalipova, (Feb. 2025, Odd Dot), $18.99, ISBN: 9781250908339
Mom Read It 