The brain is so we can listen and see the colour of the dress: The ideas four year old children have about the inside of our bodies

Sammendrag

The paper explores what kind of ideas four year old children have about their body; that is, the location, structure and function of bones and certain organs. Twenty pre-school children were chosen to take part in the research. They were asked to make two drawings each, one of the bones and one of the organs. The children were interviewed about the functions of the bones and organs. The children were also given a cracker and a glass of water and asked to describe the way the food goes from mouth and onwards. The results show that most of the children draw bones as lines throughout the body. The heart and the brain are the first organs they know and they also know that the food we eat goes from the mouth and into the stomach but their understanding of what happens in and beyond the stomach is very vague.