Customer Reviews

Janice VanCleave's The Human Body for Every Kid: Easy Activities that Make Learning Science Fun (Science for Every Kid Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A great teaching tool. This informative and well illustrated book is a great homeschool tool. We homeschool 4 children ages 5 to 12 and this book is adaptable to all levels of learning. Exercises and activities will keep your kids wanting to move to the next chapter. Each of the major systems of the human body are presented in a clear and understandable way. Janice VanCleave takes you and your child from human cell division all the way to reproduction.(no explicit graphics used). We particularly enjoyed the chapters on the human brain where there are many hands on activities to give the kids a better understanding of how the brain works. If you have kids and your trying to teach them something about human anatomy, THIS IS THE BOOK TO GET.

I'm a former science teacher turned homeschool mom and I'm using this book to study the human body with my kids (grades 1 and 3). I admit that the text in the book is probably advanced for them, but we read through the sections paragraph by paragraph and sort out what they are talking about. The drawings in the book are really well done and help in explaining what the chapter is talking about.
I would have given the book five stars if it weren't for what seems to me to be a mismatch between complexity of the text and the simplicity of the activities. My children are very excited about the activities and get a lot of science out of them. But, I think that older kids that would understand the text right away might be bored with the majority of the activities.

This is the first time I've used a book from Janice VanCleave's series of science books, and I have been very satisfied. We used "The Human Body" as the main textbook for a homeschool science unit that lasted about 6 weeks. I have three kids, two in 4th grade an one in 5th. They have loved the chapters' format--general information with defined key words in bold, along with exercises and activities. What I like most is that the book helps kids THINK about how the body works as a group of systems rather than just inundating them with information. The kids have enjoyed the activities/experiments that correspond to each chapter, and I like them because if materials are necessary (and not all activities require materials) they are household items (like cottonballs, a flashlight, bowls, hot water, etc.) that are on-hand. In addition to the book, we use a notebook to compile the vocabulary words, diagrams, exercises and results from experiments/activities. I am planning to use more of her books in the future.

My five year old is fascinated by the human body so I bought this book in additon to a basic anatomy book, What's the Big Secret? by Laura Krasny Brown and Marc Brown (creator of Arthur books), The Magic School Bus Inside Ralphie and The Human Body by Dr. Marie Rose.

The experiments featured in this book don't take very long to conduct and use the most basic household materials. Not all the experiments seemed instructive for his age but I'm looking forward to future explorations with him.

Because I have such a young audience, I had think up further applications of the concepts presented in order to make the experiments a more effective learning experience for him. For instance, the model lung we made effectively showed how the diaphragm allows us to take air into our lungs but what made a lasting impression was when I showed him how the diaphragm moves during a hiccup. Why wasn't this suggested in the book? A couple weeks later my son showed me how our neighbor smokes 'sticks' so I filled the model lung with molasses to represent how 'soot' from cigarette smoking interferes with lung expansion. The molasses made the model useless (and sticky) vividly demonstrating how 'soot' interferes with oxygen intake. I suspect VanCleave could come up with a better experiment to demonstrate how smoking harms lungs.

Other experiments are not as didactic but create intrigue about the human body. Both my five year old and three year old were thoroughly engrossed in an experiment from the chapter about modified skin cells (hair and nails) that involved testing the strength of different hair types. Although the hair experiment is memorable it's the only experiment offered in a chapter that really peaked their interest.

This book is a valuable part of our home library but I give it only three stars because my kids want to know more so I figure I should demand a little more from the title.

I teach 7th-12th grade; at the 11th/12th grade level, I teach anatomy. I have been searching for fun, easy, hands-on activities to trow into my lessons. I knew this book was for grades 5-7 when I bought it, but I thought that I might be able to find a few useful ideas (big kids are just little kids at heart!). Well, I didn't, but that's ok because I knew that might happen when I bought it. However, I can still review the book for use with elementary/middle school kids since I teach middle school too.

When I read through the book, I was struck by the amount of detail the author uses in explaining how various aspects of the body work. In reading some of the other reviews of the book, people commented on the discrepancies between the level of the activities and the level of the scientific information. I think if you plan to use this with a younger crowd- say, 5th-6th grade- yes, the scientific information may be over their heads, but the experiments are at their level. The information you teach with it can always be brought down to their level, and the more "complex" info can be saved for parents/teachers/gifted and talented students who want to understand the info at a deeper level.

As for using the book with middle school kids- I teach 7th grade Earth Science, but if I taught a life science course and covered the human body, I wouldn't see a problem using this with 7th/8th graders. Some of the experiments would be TOO simple, but they can always be modified to be more complex. As for the information about how the body works, I think that it is more at their level.

So, I give this book 4 stars. If there was a little more consistency between the complexity of the information and the activities, I would give it a full 5 stars. However, the discrepancy is also somewhat helpful- then you can use this book at various levels and modify it to fit the needs of your kids as you go.

While this is full of information, it wasn't really what I was looking for. This might be good for kids over 10/12, however it's presented w/ silly science experiments that they may be too cool for, by that age.
Basically, it's complex science w/ silly experiments. My daughter likes doing the experiments, but she doesn't get much out of them because the science is too advanced.

I paid extra to receive this book in a few days because my daughter was working on a science project and we needed the book very quickly. I ordered two books that day. The first one I received the next day. This book took almost a week to get here which was way too late and a waste of extra money to have it shipped quickly.