Our district gives us 25 days to use to go over body systems, but we normally are over our time for other units and end up condensing some on the body systems unit. One way I am able to condense the unit is by having the students complete body system booklets for seven of the ten systems they need to learn.
Body System Booklets: The body system booklets are made from worksheets I have obtained from the sites "Super Teacher Worksheets" and from "Education.com" I make sure that each booklet has some type of reading passage with questions and a picture of the body system or an organ from the body system for the students to color. Some of the worksheets have puzzles on them as well. The worksheets are all at an elementary school level so they are easy to comprehend even for my students who have very low comprehension levels.
I give the students two weeks to complete all seven booklets, plus they take generalized notes about all of the body systems and they complete a vocabulary chart with definitions of the function and structures of each system. I allow the students to go at their own pace and in the order they choose and each day I remind them that they should have finished at least 1 or 2 of the booklets. Then I check in with them and see how they are doing. I will also pull students together and do things as a small group to ensure the stragglers are getting things done.
The Menu: On the third week I provide the students with the body systems menu. Using the menu they produce two small projects and one slightly involved project that showcase important information such as the functions and structures for each body system, or how they interact with other body systems. For the small projects students are able to choose from creating index cards, charts, a power point, a crossword puzzle, bingo game or matching game. For the more involved project they are asked to create a travel brochure, scrapbook, children's book or poster. They have 1 week of class time to complete these assignments. They are of course always allowed to take their work home to work on it.
After all of this, we come together and discuss, we talk about how the body systems work together, we dissect frogs and then we take out unit test. That's how I teach human body systems.
