Model of a backbone

I don’t know about you…but I am just *waiting* for things to S-L-O-W down at school, but I just don’t thing it will happen anytime soon! We finally finished our MAP and AimsWeb testing, our first round of progress reports, and getting into the swing of things with our reading, writing, and math workshop. I feel like I teach mini-lessons all day long! How is your year going so far?

We are learning about vertebrates and invertebrates in our science
curriculum. The textbook that we use has an awesome idea to create a model of a
backbone, which represents animals that have a vertebrate.

Materials needed:

Lifesavers Gummies

Pasta Noodles

Pipe Cleaners

1. Tie a knot at the bottom of the pipe cleaner. Slide a pasta wheel on the
pipe cleaner. Slide the pasta wheel to the bottom of the knot.

2. Slide a Lifesaver Gummie on next.

3. Continue to slide rest of the pasta and Gummies on the pipe cleaner,
alternating between the two.

4. Tie a knot when you get to the top of the pipe cleaner.

There you have it! Bend, turn, twist…you have a model of your backbone! The
students twisted and turned their model of the backbone and then twisted and
turned their own bodies to mimic what they were doing with the model.

This was such an easy model to make and the kids loved it!