Anybody here use "The Body Book" ?

[plain jane]

I bought The Body Book to use this year with Apologia's A&P book but I have to admit I'm not liking it at all.

 

I *want* to like it and I've heard great things about it but I'm finding it hard to figure out what it is that I'm supposed to do and it's an ridiculous amount of cutting (not to mention photocopying). :glare: I'm not opposed to cutting but I find the directions (where to tape/glue and how to assemble) a bit hard to follow at times. Maybe it's just me. :001_huh:

 

Those of you who've used it successfully, is it really that great that I'd be missing out on a fantastic teaching opportunity by not using it? Did you use the entire book? What would you say were your favorite parts or the most valuable/not to be missed? Also, any tips that could help me have more success with this book?

[Jilly]

:bigear:

 

It is not just you. I bought this a few weeks ago, and I can't figure out what to do with it.

[5LittleMonkeys]

We used it last year and I placed all of the finished pieces into a 3 ring binder. I had to attach a lot of the finished pieces onto card-stock with enough of the edge exposed to 3 hole punch. It made a nice finished project but it was VERY time consuming. It took way to long for my dc to cut everything out so after the first few "parts" I spent a couple weekends pre-cutting everything and pre-assembling some of the trickier pieces together. Once I reconciled myself to doing most of the prep work it all went much more smoothly. The dc did enjoy it and still get their notebooks out to look at them. Their favorites were the eye and the mouth where they could put different "food" down the throat. I have to say that of all the science we did last year they enjoyed and retained most of what we studied from that book more than any of the other books or projects. So, I guess it was worth it for us.

 

I saved the original book and will do it again with my son when he is older. This time I know to start about a month ahead and get everything pre-cut and some of it assembled before we start.

[plain jane]

We used it last year and I placed all of the finished pieces into a 3 ring binder. I had to attach a lot of the finished pieces onto card-stock with enough of the edge exposed to 3 hole punch. It made a nice finished project but it was VERY time consuming. It took way to long for my dc to cut everything out so after the first few "parts" I spent a couple weekends pre-cutting everything and pre-assembling some of the trickier pieces together. Once I reconciled myself to doing most of the prep work it all went much more smoothly. The dc did enjoy it and still get their notebooks out to look at them. Their favorites were the eye and the mouth where they could put different "food" down the throat. I have to say that of all the science we did last year they enjoyed and retained most of what we studied from that book more than any of the other books or projects. So, I guess it was worth it for us.

 

I saved the original book and will do it again with my son when he is older. This time I know to start about a month ahead and get everything pre-cut and some of it assembled before we start.

 

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with it. Do you by chance have pictures of what you made with the book? I'm still not entirely clear how some of the models are supposed to come out.

 

Do they end up looking like the front cover where they all fit together into one human body or is everything separate? So far all I've done were the few pages on muscles (which are near the end of the book) and I'm not even sure I was supposed to have done them first but I wanted to stick with the sequence that Apologia uses.

[5LittleMonkeys]

Thanks for sharing your experience with it. Do you by chance have pictures of what you made with the book? I'm still not entirely clear how some of the models are supposed to come out.

 

Do they end up looking like the front cover where they all fit together into one human body or is everything separate? So far all I've done were the few pages on muscles (which are near the end of the book) and I'm not even sure I was supposed to have done them first but I wanted to stick with the sequence that Apologia uses.

 

 

I don't have any right now but I would be happy to take some and send them to you in the next couple of days. (I'm going to be crazy busy Tue. and Wed.) The majority of the "parts" are individual. The picture on the front of the book is what one of the finished pieces would look like. It's easiest if you go ahead and print the pieces out cut them and then follow the directions to assemble it, before you sit down to do it with your dc. You will see once you have them assembled that most of them will fit onto cardstock or two pieces of cardstock put together with tape as a hinge. So you would unfold it (centerfold style:tongue_smilie:) to be able to see the finished piece. If you don't want to go to the trouble of putting it all into a notebook you could just have the dc decorate a "body box" and keep all of the pieces stored flat in the box. (What I wish I had done actually!) Or an accordion file box would work too, if you want the pieces kept separately.

 

We actually didn't finish the whole book and I have it scheduled to complete during our Dec. break only because the dc are nagging me to finish it. I think we are only lacking maybe 2 or 3; I was hoping they would have forgotten about it.:glare::lol:

[robsiew]

Not sure how old your kids are, but mine were 8 and 7 when we used this book and it was too hard. I ended up doing all the cutting. And, it cost $100 to photocopy it all! (Looking back I would have NOT done everything and would not have done it at Staples!). Not all the models fit together. Most were way too detailed for my kids' ages. We didn't even scratch the surface of what we could have done with the book making it NOT worth the money I had to sink into it! :glare: Anyone have a thread on "expensive homeschool lessons by rookies???);)

 

I used this book with my little guys (4 and 5 at the time) and if I had to do it over again, I would have used it with my older ones too. I had thought it would be too "young" for them, but I think they would have gotten more out of the project. With this one we drew their bodies on butcher paper and they got to add all the systems to it. Much easier! Even my little ones could color and cut most of them out themselves.

 

If your kids are logic stage I'd say go for The Body book, but if they are grammar stage I'd suggest My Body. I'll resurrect The Body again most likely, but not until they are older. A friend even saw what we were doing and said she thinks she used it in a college anatomy class! That should have been my clue that a 7 and 8 year old probably didn't need it! :lol:

[cbollin]

Thanks for sharing your experience with it. Do you by chance have pictures of what you made with the book? I'm still not entirely clear how some of the models are supposed to come out.

 

Do they end up looking like the front cover where they all fit together into one human body or is everything separate? So far all I've done were the few pages on muscles (which are near the end of the book) and I'm not even sure I was supposed to have done them first but I wanted to stick with the sequence that Apologia uses.

 

 

My friend MishMashMaggie has some pictures and videos from last year when her family did this book

Here's a link to her blog.

http://www.mishmashmaggie.com/p/rtr-rome-to-reformation.html

 

on that link, start to look around week 4. and then other stuff is there too.

 

Some of the models are stand alone, or what I called "zoom in" model. That would be like the brain, eye and a few other things. Then, later the skeleton gets made and new things attached.

 

MishMashMaggie and I both used this book in MFW's RTR and did them in that order. I know MishMashMaggie does modify in a few places. I know I tend to ignore some parts of the instructions and put it together the way I think it is supposed to look.

 

I don't have pics though. But lainie on mishmash does a fantastic job showing how to use this book with her family.

 

I'm with you on the photocopying though. It's a little pain.

 

-crystal

[Pam in MA]

It could be your kids are a little too young for it. We've actually done it twice because the kids liked it so much, and it has really helped them retain a lot of information about the body. They were ages 6 and 9 the first time, and 11 and 14 the second. I copied all the cut-out pages onto card stock, and we put it together over a couple of months. I would also recommend writing the part on the back of the piece once you've cut it out. My kids do love coloring and cutting things out, though!

[HollyBee]

We're using it right now (w/MFW RtR) and actually, despite the somewhat irregular directions, I like it. Granted, we're not far into it, but we did the ear model last week and I think it really helped the kids understand how all the parts of the ear work together. Now, my kids are older (12 and 10), so they can do most of the cutting and pretty much all of the taping/gluing. I agree, though, that it might not be the best resource for younger kids.

[Harriet Vane]

I actually really like it.

 

I photocopied everything on light card stock and cut it all out myself while watching TV or waiting for kids at lessons (piano, guitar, sports, etc.). I had a paper box to keep the pieces in. I would place all the pieces for a given page in the box, then cover over with a piece of paper labeled with the page number and body part (p.29--brain).

 

Another simple option would be to keep the pieces in page protectors or large manila envelopes.

 

The only assembly that was difficult for me was the various joint types. I asked dh to do that unit with the kids. I did find that I needed to read the directions to myself ahead of time to make sure I understood it, rather than trying to puzzle through it in front of the kids.

 

I like the book a great deal because it gave such a good visual of what all the things we studied look like. Our understanding of how things work was definitely enhanced by the models we put together. I liked that the models could be kept in a notebook (either in page protectors or taped to a piece of paper), and I liked that it was cheaper and less bulky than buying a 3-D model. Also the paper models allowed us to see so much more in finer detail than a larger, 3-D model.

[MerryAtHope]

Same thing here! The directions in that book are horrible in my opinion! Sometimes they would say there was a diagram of something & there would be no diagram. Many times steps were left out or the description really needed a picture to demonstrate what they meant.

 

My dd has fond memories of making some of the models, so I try not to ruin that with my grumbling, LOL!

 

Someone mentioned reading it ahead of time--definitely do that if you want to continue, rather than puzzling through it with the kids!

 

Merry :-)

[Staceyshoe]

I used this book with my little guys (4 and 5 at the time) and if I had to do it over again, I would have used it with my older ones too.

 

We used this too, and LOVED it! It's easy to implement. I wish the instructions were a tad more specific, but we could figure it out. Ds was ready for something more advanced, so we used our own human body instructional materials but did this body book as a fun supplemental activity.

[jborres]

I have never head about this until today..thank you. I am going to look into it!

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I'm now going to look more closely-I picked up the book because my dd's Girl Scout troop met in a 4th grade classsroom where the teacher had used it-all the students' bodies were hanging on the walls. I knew there would be much photocopying but I though they would enjoy seeing how everything fits.

 

Now I'm forewarned that I need to do more prep then just the copies.

[jenn&charles]

I used it with Otter. It was kind of a pain sometimes, but it turned out to be worth it. I had to do a lot of the prep beforehand and I had everything copied at the beginning of our year of the human body study I made.

Sometimes the instructions were a pain to figure out, but we got through everything, even if it didn't match what we should have done 100%. ;)

 

Here's a pic of one of the things we did from that book:

 

[sassenach]

I used it with a 10/11yo and really enjoyed it. She was old enough to do most of it on her own. We did it in coordination with SL5 science. I would read her a passage about the body part while she did the cutting and assembling. We still have her assembled Mr. Bones hanging in our kitchen/school room.

[5knights3maidens]

We used this quite a few years ago and loved it. Now I'm starting it with my younger kids. Here is what we did with the other Body Book (Large "lapbook")

 

http://lovinglifelapbooks.blogspot.com/2009/11/body-lapbook.html

 

Below: Starting to add from the "more difficult body book". I have to admit we haven't done much this year but after reading this post, we need to get moving. ;)

 

http://trueblessingshomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/09/this-is-part-of-katies-body-we-did-last.html'>http://trueblessingshomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/09/this-is-part-of-katies-body-we-did-last.html'>http://trueblessingshomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/09/this-is-part-of-katies-body-we-did-last.html'>http://trueblessingshomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/09/this-is-part-of-katies-body-we-did-last.html

 

http://trueblessingshomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/09/this-is-part-of-katies-body-we-did-last.html

 

You can put many body books together and make a cool large "lapbook".

[Narrow Gate Academy]

I bought The Body Book to use this year with Apologia's A&P book but I have to admit I'm not liking it at all.

 

I *want* to like it and I've heard great things about it but I'm finding it hard to figure out what it is that I'm supposed to do and it's an ridiculous amount of cutting (not to mention photocopying). :glare: I'm not opposed to cutting but I find the directions (where to tape/glue and how to assemble) a bit hard to follow at times. Maybe it's just me. :001_huh:

 

My 6th grader is using it this year along with Apologia's A&P, so she does all her own cutting. It's not just you with the directions. I wish they were a bit easier to follow at times.

 

Those of you who've used it successfully, is it really that great that I'd be missing out on a fantastic teaching opportunity by not using it? Did you use the entire book? What would you say were your favorite parts or the most valuable/not to be missed? Also, any tips that could help me have more success with this book?

 

Personally, I think the best part of the book is the second half where you put all of the organ systems on the skeleton. The coloring page for the circulatory system with blood flow for the arteries and veins is also very good. For the larger systems (like the skeletal system) with lots of pieces, I had DD cut out a page a day while she was working her way through the Apologia chapter so it wasn't quite so overwhelming. We tried some of the smaller booklets (one for the parts of a tooth, one for the stomach) which have been so-so and have skipped some of the other smaller booklets and models that I didn't really consider necessary. Like any other resource, choose the parts that you consider a good investment of time and feel free to skip the parts that you don't see the point of. You certainly shoudln't feel obligated to do every page in the book. I have posted pics of DD's skeleton as part of our weekly reports on my blog on the weeks we added to him if pictures would help in your assembly process. HTH

[hsbaby]

I also bought this to go along with Apologia Anatomy. The kids have enjoyed the "Try This" sections from the book more than anything in "The Body Book". They hate all the cutting....and so do I so there is no way they are pawning it off on me:tongue_smilie:

[Aubrey]

I'm planning to use this book next summer w/ dc--they'll be 8 & 10. Some of your comments have made me wonder--should we do one body together or one per kid? (I'd assumed 1 together, & if we do more than that, they're cutting it out themselves!)