Part 4 of 4

By Nicole Rhodes, Lead STEM Tutor

Decorative skeletons are everywhere, around Halloween–but most of them drive Anatomy teachers a little crazy with how inaccurate they can be! This is a great activity to test your detective skills by using your own body as a template for real bones and comparing them to the skeleton’s structure. It also helps visualize how bones support our bodies, while muscles provide shape and strength. No bones about it, skeleton anatomy is spooky and FUN!

Materials

• Plastic skeleton
• Play-dough

Instructions

Add play-dough to decorative Halloween skeletons to visualize how our body’s muscles form, but our bones hold us up and support us. This can be as structured or open-ended as you would like. I had my family members guess at muscle groups based on their own body shape. This can be an entry point to ask more questions and discover anatomically correct forms. 

Some questions along the way can include: 

-How do bones hold us up?

-What do muscles do for us? 

-How many bones do we have? Try to count your bones. 

-Can you tell if the Halloween decoration is anatomically correct? Why or why not?

Happy experimenting this Halloween! 

​Find more:

• Part 1: Candy Osmosis
• Part 2: Spooky Apple Volcanoes
• Part 3: Spider Lava Lamps
• Or watch the segments on WWLP News Channel 22’s Mass Appeal live here.