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Every new class of preschool students brings new vocabulary that we need to teach, and this year I have had a lot of kids who are working on identifying and labeling body parts. I have been trying to find many different ways to incorporate these goals into various kinds of activities to engage my friends with the short attention spans 🙂 SO, I'm bringing you a list of some of my favorite activities and games that have helped me to accomplish these goals…hello, mastery!
One of the best ways to establish this goal is using their body…DUH, right? Simon Says is a great way to target on body parts, as well as songs!
Some songs we use…
- “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” is a timeless one that kids learn pretty easy and is always a good one because we all know it!
- My friend Katie over at Playing with Words 365 also had a great suggestion for a cute song that goes to the tune of “Mary had a little lamb”, check it out here.
- Parts of the Body Song on YouTube is a more upbeat, less nursery rhyme, song that my kids like A LOT!
There are TONS of other options on YouTube for songs about body parts, just find some tunes you like that are age appropriate for your students. Songs are such a great way to teach using their own body to point, touch, or move different body parts and the repetitiveness of most of the songs is great for stimulating language.
Routines are one of the best ways to teach language to little ones, so incorporating that into your speech routines, as well as their regular classroom routines, can help our students learn body parts too. Social rules often allow us the opportunity to talk about what we do with our body, the poster above is one for my students about listening. We talk about what we do with each part of our body when we are listening during circle time. This is a very easy way for the classroom teacher to also incorporate this goal! Think about other routines they have in the classroom, such as washing hands, eating lunch, bathroom, etc as opportunities to for learning body parts.
And don't forget, collaborate with parents about how using their routines at home, such as bath time or getting dressed, will also help their children to learn this vocabulary.
On to the TOYS! Playing is a huge part of what we do in preschool therapy, so lots of my favorite resources are just that! Mr. Potato Head is perfect since all his parts come off! This is great for working on requesting specific parts, I just hold them back and my students have to ask for what they need. Easily incorporate naming, requesting, functions, etc with this toy! Plus there are TONS of different kinds of potato heads these days, you are bound to find one that interests your kids.
This puppet is new to my collection this year and my kids LOVE it! It is a monster, who has removable parts for arms, eyes, nose, eyebrows, horns, etc. from Melissa and Doug (my fave toys). It comes with several parts that are different designs, so you can also work on some descriptive vocabulary, like colors and texture. 
Where is Howie's Owie? is another must have if you work in preschool! He is a magnet board and comes with lots of different colored bandaid magnets in two sizes. My kids love putting the bandaids on and taking them off…it gives lots of opportunities to talk about his different body parts while covering up all of his ‘owies'. Also great for size and color vocabulary, following directions, and basic concepts.
Last but not least on the list is this goofy guy! What's in Ned's Head? is super popular with all of my students, I get giggles for days when I pull him out. He is great for facial body parts, PLUS the concepts of in/out.
Those are some of my faves! What are your favorite activities for teaching body parts?
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I developed Grace App and included a whole folder on “The body” So my daughter Grace could learn to tact on pain. We use Mr Potato head to request body parts too, then ask her to point to her own body.