Let’s learn about animal science with animal x-rays on the light table!
It’s no secret that we love our light table. It’s one of the most popular items in the playroom and we’re always looking for simple ways to use it to encourage learning and exploration. This month our Light & Reflections Series is all about engineering and science which gave us the perfect opportunity to break out the animal x-rays that have been in my cupboard forever and explore some simple animal science!
Affiliate links provided for your convenience, see disclosure for more info.
This is such a fun and easy animal science activity for preschoolers (and older kids too). You can pair these with worksheets, book, and circle time activities or just let kids observe and explore the x-rays on their own. They also would be super cute used in a pretend play vet’s office activity!
Animal X-Rays on the Light Table
Materials:
With my preschoolers, there’s been a lot of talk about our bodies and bones lately so this activity was a great way to expand on that and talk about bones and bone structure in animals.
Our set of animal x-rays comes with a color photo that matches each x-ray so the kids laid them out, side by side, and studied how each animal’s bones were formed and their placement within the body.
The side-by-side comparison of the x-rays and the photos really helps the kids see “inside” the animals and understand how their bones are formed and structured inside each animal’s body.
Related Learning Activity: Explore fall foliage on the light table!
My daughter was really interested in the fish x-rays. They have an exotic fish tank in her preschool class so she found a picture that looked like one in her class fish tank. She was surprised to see that they had so many little bones and was intrigued by how different it was from ours.
The kids did a lot of individual study with this activity. I let them explore the x-rays and record their findings by leaving paper and pencils next to the light table. My preschoolers are not writing much yet but they happily colored photos of what they were observing. We also picked up several books about bones and animal anatomy at the library they could pair with these animal x-rays.
We also spent several days in circle time talking about the bones of the animals in our x-rays. There are so many ways to use these for learning and so many ways to use them!
For more light table science check out these:
Oil & Water Experiment from Still Playing School
Experimenting With Light & Mirrors from Frog in a Pocket
Looking for more crafts and activities? Check out our index for 100+ plus kids activities! Find activities by theme, materials, skills, age and much more!
I didn’t know you could buy X-rays like this! I think I would be just as fascinated as the kids would be, lol!