THEME: The focus of this session is the human body -- naming its parts, enjoying talking about what the body can do, and affirming what children know about their bodies.

OVERVIEW:In this introductory session, you will find out what children know about their bodies, and you will help them express that knowledge through naming, listing, and categorizing activities, drawing pictures of themselves; and responding to a story about parts of the body.

SESSION GOALS:

• To support each child's sense of self and self-esteem.
• To foster comfort with open communication about the human body.
• To strengthen communication between child and parent, educating institution and home.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Children will

• Gain accurate information about the human body and its functions.
• Become comfortable using accurate terms for parts of their bodies.
• Begin to learn the names of male and female genitals.

SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE

Materials Checklist

• Newsprint, markers, and tape
• Drawing paper
• Markers, crayons, and/or colored pencils
• Resources for parents
  • Parent Guide for Our Whole Lives for Grades K-1 and 4-6 and Pam Wilson's When Sex Is the Subject. Both are recommended for every session.
• Newsprint list of Participation Guidelines from the parent/child orientation
• Three-ring binders (1/2-inch capacity) to make Our Whole Lives journals for each child
• A selection of resource books for display and reference: Look Inside Your Body by Gina Ingoglia, The Bare Naked Book by Kathy Stinson, Bellybuttons Are Navels by Mark Schoen, and others
• Anatomically complete dolls, puzzles, pictures, puppets, and other age-appropriate sexuality education materials
• Leader Resource 2, Twin Babies, Leader Resource 3, Illustration of a Girl's Body (Unlabeled), and Leader Resource 4, Illustration of a Boy's Body (Unlabeled)
• HomeLink 1, Reading a Story, and HomeLink 2, Body Parts and Functions

PREPARATION: Read the session and decide who will lead each activity. Gather the resources and materials needed. Set up a permanent display table or shelf and an activity table. Choose a welcoming song or affirmation poem that you would like to incor porate into this and subsequent sessions (see Leader Resource 1, Songs).

Prepare to lead the song "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and the closing song, "Until We Meet Again" (see Leader Resource 1, Songs). If you are new to teaching sexuality education, practice saying genital terms aloud until you think you will be comfortable using them with children. Also, think of some phrases you can use if children become giggly or overstimulated when discussing body parts. For example, you might say, "It's okay to giggle. But we need to use the correct words -- penis, vulva, breast, and buttocks -- because all parts of the body, including our sexual parts, are important. And when we talk about them correctly and comfortably, we learn the meaning, function, and value of our genitals."

Prepare Our Whole Lives journals. In each binder, insert a cover page of colored paper; Handout 4, My Journal (see Parent/Child Orientation Program, page 22); all seven Our Whole Lives for Grades K-1 stories, including either Leader Resource 9, How a Baby Begins (Version One) or Leader Resource 10, How a Baby Begins (Version Two), depending on the decision of parents during the orientation; and HomeLink pages from all eight sessions. Include nine or more blank sheets of drawing paper (one sheet after each HomeLink page) and extra sheets at the back of the journals.

Photocopy and enlarge Leader Resource 3, Illustration of a Girl's Body (Unlabeled), and Leader Resource 4, Illustration of a Boy's Body (Unlabeled). Review Leader Resource 3, Illustration of a Girl's Body (Labeled) and Leader Resource 4, Illustration of a Boy's Body (Labeled), which are for the leaders' reference in this session and for display at the end of Session 2. Photocopy HomeLink 1, Reading a Story, and HomeLink 2, Parts of the Body and Their Functions, for parents to take home. Post the Participation Guidelines from the parent/child orientation.

OPENING, 10 minutes: Greet the children and parents individually as they arrive. Invite them to explore the resource books, picture books, dolls, puzzles, and other materials on display. When all parents and children have arrived, invite them into a sharing circle. Emphasize that everyone belongs in this circle and that here we share our thoughts and feelings and treat each other in kind and caring ways. Remind everyone of the Participation Guidelines agreed to in the parent/child orientation.

Welcome everyone to the session with a special greeting or use a song such as "Name Game," "The More We Get Together," or "Feeling Song" (Leader Resource 1, Songs). Ask everyone to say their full names and tell one thing special about themselves. Introduce yourself in the same way. Briefly introduce this program and include the following points:

• We will be talking about ourselves as human beings; our wonderful bodies and how they function; our families and what they mean to us; how babies are born and different ways they come into our families; and how people celebrate birthdays from the moment a baby is born and throughout their whole lives.
• You can ask questions about all the things that you would like to know about your own body, about girls' bodies, about boys' bodies, about grown-ups' bodies, just about anything. It is important to learn about ourselves, and asking questions is a wonderful way to learn.
• We will be learning about how important it is to take care of our bodies, to keep them safe, and to help them grow into healthy, strong grown-up bodies.
• Everyone will have a personal journal in which to draw pictures, write stories, poems, and songs about themselves, their bodies, their families, and their celebrations. The collection of Our Whole Lives stories is in the journals, too. Everyone will receive his/her own Our Whole Lives journal today. You can take your journal home after each session, but you need to bring your journal back to class each session.
• Everyone will have HomeLinks to take home. HomeLinks will include messages and stories to read at home as well as activities to do with parents and family members.

STORY TIME, 10 minutes: Read Leader Resource 2, Twin Babies, and show the story illustration when you read about the body parts game. After reading the story, celebrate the fact that we all have bodies -- arms and legs, hands and feet, a head, and a spine! Ask the children and parents to name something they like to do with their bodies. When everyone who would like to has shared, invite them to thank their bodies by giving themselves a hug.

DISCUSSION: WHAT ARE THE PARTS OF OUR BODIES?, 15 minutes: Display the two anatomically complete dolls if you have them and the enlarged photocopies of Leader Resource 3, illustration of a Girl's Body (Unlabeled), and Leader Resource 4, Illustration of a Boy's Body (Unlabeled), so that the children can see and refer to them. Using the Twin Babies story as a catalyst for discussion, ask if anyone can name a part of the body. List the parts that children name on newsprint and draw a little illustration of each part next to the word. Ask: "Which parts come in pairs?" (If children don't know the word pair, explain its meaning. Put two checks next to each part named as a pair.) "Do all the parts of our bodies come in pairs? Do we have one of some parts?" (Mark the single parts with one check.) "Are there any body parts of which there are many? What are they? How many of each do we have?"

If children mention the genitals, list them, affirm their importance, and tell children that they will be learning more about their genitals and other parts of the body next time. Children probably will not be familiar with the word genitals, so you will need to tell them what this term means. Say something like: "Genitals are the sex and reproductive organs. You named penis (or vulva); that's part of a boy's (or girl's) genitals."Ask children to tell you what each part does. Write their responses: for example, noses smell, ears hear, eyes see.

Talk about people with different abilities. Name artists, athletes, engineers, and leaders whom the children may know. Name family members and community leaders with different abilities. Talk positively about how people with disabilities do some things in different ways if they can't use their legs or they can't hear or see. Give some examples from your own community.

DRAWING: MAKING PICTURES OF OUR WONDERFUL BODIES, 15 minutes: Distribute an Our Whole Lives journal to each child. Ask children to write their names on their journals (or ask parents to help them by dictating the spelling) and invite them to draw something that they would like to have on the cover page. If some children completed Handout 4, My Journal, during the parent/child orientation, tell them they may add this page to their journals at home.

Ask the children to open their journals and draw a simple figure of themselves on a blank page, showing as many parts of the body as they can remember. Ask parents to label the body parts as their children name them and then to write "My Body" on the top of the page.

CLOSING, 10 minutes: Sing the song "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" from Leader Resource 1. Distribute HomeLink 1, Reading a Story, and HomeLink 2, Parts of the Body and Their Functions, to each parent. Invite the children to find HomeLink I and HomeLink 2 in their journals. Ask parents and children to find the Twin Babies story in their journals. Invite them to take their journals home and to work on their HomeLink I and HomeLink 2 activities together during the week. Briefly summarize the session. Lead the group in singing the closing song, "Until We Meet Again" from Leader Resource 1. Remind the children to bring their journals to class next time. Say goodbye to each child and parent individually.

LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING: Reflect on these questions and discuss them with your coleader

• How do I feel about today's session?
• What can I learn from the experience of this session?
• What do I need to do to prepare for the next session?

Twin Babies
Hi, my name is Jody, and I am six years old. I used to be the only child in my family but guess what? My mommy just had twin babies, and now I have a brother and a sister! My sister is named Jennifer, but we call her Jenny. My brother's name is Joshua, and we call him Josh. We named the twins J names on purpose. My daddy's name is John, and my mommy's name is Joanna, so everyone in our family has the same initials. We think this is fun.

When Mommy first told me that she was going to have a baby, she said I would have a sister or a brother. She didn't know it was going to be a sister and a brother. But after a few months, the midwife who was taking care of her when she was pregnant said, "Surprise! I hear two heartbeats when I put my stethoscope on your abdomen. It's not one baby, Joanna, it's twins."

When I come home from school, I like to help my mommy take care of the twins before I go out to play. Mommy and I look at their little bodies together when they need fresh diapers or a bath. We play a game. Sometimes we count their fingers and toes. Sometimes we look for parts that come in pairs, like their ears, which I love to kiss. Sometimes we look for only the single parts, like their heads. The babies' bodies are so much alike, except that Jenny has a vulva and a a because she is a girl and Josh has a penis and testicles because he is a boy.

When we play the body parts game, we sing to the twins. We just make up a tune as we go along:

Jenny has one head, Josh has one head.
Jenny has no hair, Josh has no hair. (They're both pretty bald.)
Jenny has two ears, Josh has two ears.
Jenny has no teeth, Josh has no teeth. (They haven't grown yet.)
Jenny has a vulva, Josh has a penis.
Jenny has buttocks, Josh has buttocks.
Jenny has ten toes, Josh has ten toes.

Mommy sings to one twin, and I sing to the other. When the twins hear us singing to them, they smile their funny baby smiles.

Read a story about the human body with your child. Look Inside Your Body by Gina Ingoglia is a good choice. This spiral-bound board book with cutouts illustrates and explains various parts of the body -- bones, muscles, blood, and anatomical sexual differences and the way the parts work. Two other recommended books are Bellybuttons Are Navels by Mark Schoen and The Bare Naked Book by Kathy Stinson.

Make a list of parts of the body with your child. In one column, list the part your child names and in the other column write what function that part has. For example: