Matching helps young students develop memory and observational skills. Use cards with pictures of different bones and ask students to match the cards that look alike, or bring in life-size bones -- either real or made of plaster -- and use these in your game. Because many human bones come in pairs, such as the thigh bones, shin bones and arm bones, ask students to find matching pairs. If your students are old enough to learn some of the names of bones, write the names of bones on flash cards and ask students to match the cards to the proper bones.
While elementary-school students may not be able to locate all 206 bones of the body, they should be able to locate the larger and more obvious ones. Even younger students will be able to distinguish between the skull, hips, ribs and primary bones of the arms and legs. Give groups of students simple sets of plastic or plaster bones and ask them to put the bones back together to form a human skeleton, giving the first successful group a prize. For older students, divide the class into two teams, and take turns giving students the name of a bone to point to on a giant skeleton poster.
Many websites offer interactive bone puzzles online, but you can create your own for the classroom. Design simple crossword puzzles using the names of bones or words that relate to the skeletal system, such as calcium, joint and tendon. For a collaborative or individual game, draw bones on different-colored sheets of construction paper and cut them into puzzle pieces, creating a single giant puzzle or multiple smaller puzzles of the human skeleton that children can put together.
To fully appreciate the complexities of the human skeleton, challenge students to create their own working bone systems. Younger students can draw skeletal images with white fabric paint on black shirts, while older students can attempt to construct skeletons from recyclable materials such as PVC pipe, newspaper, paper-mache or cardboard. To make the project more of a contest, put students in groups and see who can make the most realistic, most durable or most functional skeletons. You could give them all the same basic materials, or you could ask them to bring anything they want from home.