Humans are born with over 300 bones. Throughout growth and childhood, some of those bones combine to make the 206 bones we retain as adults. The largest bone is the femur, which comprises half of a human leg, and the smallest is the stirrup, which is located in the ear. With so many bones, it can be daunting to try to memorize them all. Here are a few tricks to help.
Instructions
1. Study the bones and their purposes. Read biology textbooks, or visit www.getbodysmart.com. There, you can visit an online tutorial of all the bones and their names. You can also click on and learn facts about each of the bones.
2. Draw the bones. Visit www.cln.org/themes/skeletal.html where you can see all the human bones in multiple views, and sketch or trace them on your own to help you remember them.
3. Create flash cards. Once you've completed cards for all the bones, shuffle them up and get a friend or family member to randomly present them to you while you guess their name.
4. Play another matching game. On your diagram of the skeleton, copy all of the bones' names onto sticky notes. Place the notes over or near the bones they correlate to. While the previous step helped you identify the bones, this step helps you identify where the bones are located in the body. It's one thing to know that the stirrup is the name of a bone, it's another to know that it's located in your ear.
5. Buy a skeleton puzzle, such as the Ravensburger Skeleton 200 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle. It helps the user learn the bones as well as where they go.
6. Learn a song about bones, such as the "Hokie Pokie Osteokey" (www.texashste.com/documents/curriculum/a_p/skeletal_system.pdf). During the song, you will point to specific bones in your own body. While it sounds silly, this device is a useful tool of repetition.
7. Create a silly saying for each bone. Lets say, for instance, you want to memorize the scapula--think that "the scapula is long and flat, like a spatula." Or, "I was in thigh high water until FEMA came and helped," (relating Thigh to Fema, which sounds like femur). It might sound odd and, honestly, a little silly, but creating a memory technique like this will work wonders for a particular bone you just can't seem to grasp.
8. Create a slide show presentation. Include information you think others would need to learn the skeletal system. Teaching is one of the best ways of learning.
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