Adventures in a Messy Life

Hands on learning for active learners

  • Home page
    • Start Here
    • About Us
    • Get all of the posts now!
    • Disclosure and other blogging information
  • Homeschooling
    • Homeschool Curriculum
    • Why I homeschool (comments from a former teacher)
    • Homeschooling and the Holidays
  • History and geography
    • Ancient History Lessons
    • Modern History lessons
    • American History Lessons
    • LEGO history
  • Science
  • Bible Curriculum
  • STORE

How to make a playdough brain model

June 22, 2014 Ticia 6 Comments

Sometimes our science lessons are just fun, take our playdough brain model. That was fun. After learning about playdough neuron last week, we proceeded this week to make a playdough brain model and use that as a springboard for our further anatomy lesson studies.

how to make a play dough brain

{This post contains affiliate links.  For more information read my disclosure page}

How to make a playdough brain model

It’s super duper simple, all you need are 3 colors of play dough.  Buying the Play-Doh: Case of Colors (affiliate link) is probably most cost-effective for your playdough brain if you’ve got more than 1 kid, unless you make your own playdough, which I’m never good at.

play dough model of the brain
  1. Pick out 3 colors, I like the primary colors, you’ll need 2 large blobs and 1 smaller blob for your playdough brain.
  2. Roll out one of your larger blobs into a long snake (look we snuck in some fine motor practice).
  3. Wind it back and forth into a weird blobby shape like you see up above.  This is your cerebrum.
  4. Add the smaller blue blob onto the back for a cerebellum.
  5. Nicely lodged between the other two colors is the brain stem (it’s another much fatter, shorter snake roll).

What we learned from our playdough brain

Cerebrum for playdough brain lesson

One of the things that amazed me about our cerebrum is how similar it is in structure to other parts of our body.  There are several different times throughout our body that God designed them with “bumps” or extra hills to increase surface space.  Other places like that: our intestines, lungs, nose, and tongue.  All of these places with extra surface area are designed to increase efficiency.  The kids and I found that fascinating.

Cerebellum play dough brain lesson

Our cerebellum is an area scientists are still finding out more about every day.  Of course, that’s true for all of the brain, but it fascinated me to learn how much the cerebellum interacts with the cerebrum for movement and motor control.

Brain stem play dough brain lesson

The brain stem is somewhat of a proto-brain because it controls all of our involuntary systems.  We don’t think at all about so many things, it was rather mind-boggling as we tried to think about remembering to breathe and for our stomach to work, and all of those things.

play dough brain model silliness

Our brain resources

  • Human Anatomy and Physiology
  • Junior Anatomy Notebooking Journal
  • Christian Kids Explore Biology
play dough brain model for elementary science biology anatomy 3rd

More nervous system resources

  • Brain puzzle
  • Brain hemisphere hat
  • Left brain/right brain (I just think the visual is so cool)
  • Brain resources

All of these and many more are pinned to my Anatomy pinterest board.

Come back in 2 weeks and learn about the parts of the cerebrum (next week, you’ll get some great July science ideas, you’ll love the suggestions).



science 3rd grade, anatomy

Comments

  1. Almost Unschoolers says

    June 22, 2014 at 7:42 am

    I really like how simple this is. And the imaginary brain surgery you could play at afterwards…we have to do this!

    Reply
  2. Phyllis at All Things Beautiful says

    June 22, 2014 at 8:54 am

    I had a feeling that this was going to show up here sooner or later. I love how you have presented it. I am pinning in for later.

    Reply
  3. Julie says

    June 22, 2014 at 6:31 pm

    This is a great activity. Simple, yet hands on and I can see it helping retention. We’re doing Anatomy in our second term this coming year so I will pin this to remember it.

    Reply
  4. maryanne @ mama smiles says

    June 22, 2014 at 8:29 pm

    This is very cool! Adding to my science board to try with the kids sometime!

    Reply
  5. Marie-Claude Leroux says

    June 25, 2014 at 8:35 am

    What a great activity – you’ve explained it so well Ticia!

    Reply
  6. Claire says

    June 26, 2014 at 6:51 am

    I love your playdough models! So simple yet effective. Brilliant!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Ticia Adventures in Mommydom Hi, I'm Ticia! This is the adventures of my family in life and learning. Follow along with us as we share our adventures. We're having a lot of fun and learning as we go.

Help!!!! I need to know:

Categories

 book and a movie combo

Copyright © 2023 ·