The human tongue is an important organ; its function is more than tasting. The tongue is responsible for mastication, deglutition, taste, and speech.
The tongue is a muscular organ that can be elongated, rolled, bent, and twisted. It is made of more than 10,000 taste buds that are capable for identifying all 5 different tastes: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami.
As part of the Montessori Health curriculum, Alison’s Montessori created a complete set to study the parts of a human tongue. For kinesthetic learning, our wooden puzzle with labels provides a hands-on experience to get familiar with each part of the tongue. For in-depth learning, a set of nomenclature cards accompanied by a booklet, and various reproductible materials are available.
Materials
- Parts of Human Tongue Puzzle: 1 wooden puzzle, 14 wooden labels, and 1 laminated control chart
- Parts of Human Tongue Nomenclature Cards*: -14 control cards, 14 pictures, 14 description cards, 28 labels, a large control chart, a blackline diagram, a booklet, and a reproducible booklet.
*Nomenclature Cards 3-6 or Nomenclature Cards 6-9 are both available.
- Optional: a nomenclature card holder, and a three part card tray.
How to use them
Our wooden puzzle Parts of Human Tongue is a versatile material that can be used based on children’s interest. Children can be invited to learn about the topic, or can choose to explore the puzzle freely.
If you introduce the puzzle first, he or she may begin by reading an article or a book about the gustatory sense to pick the children’s interest.
Following this introduction, you may choose to let the children label for puzzle using the wooden labels and the control chart, or you may let the children deconstruct and reconstruct the puzzle.
Once they have satisfied their need to manipulate the materials, you may want to introduce each part of the tongue by reading the descriptions from the Nomenclatures Cards Booklet. Children can place the wooden label on the puzzle as the descriptions are being read. They can see on the booklet which part is being described since the parts are highlighted on the pictures.
You may also want to engage into co-reading based on the children’s reading comprehension level. Auditory learners will most likely benefit from a complete introduction from the adult. In this case, having the children be active by paying attention to the reading, and labeling the puzzle is crucial.
Another work that can be started after working together is introducing the 5 part nomenclature cards (see Stand for 5 part Nomenclature Cards) Based on their reading level of confort, children will be able to choose how they want to work with the nomenclature cards. For example, a strong reader or an older learner would choose to work with the cloze test cards (blank), while an emergent reader might choose to focus on matching pictures, labels, description/label cards. You may also help children determine their level of readiness.
Finally, for self-assessment purposes, children can be given a copy of the reproducible Booklet or the reproducible Blackline diagram to complete and save.
The reproducible Booklet is a copy of Parts of Human Tongue with cloze test, which means that children must read the description, color the part being described on the picture, and write the missing word(s) that name (s) the part.
The reproducible Blackline diagram is a diagram that can be copied for the children to color and label. This allows them to integrate the knowledge through art, and writing. They are able to save this work and revisit their work later.
We hope you enjoyed reading about Parts of Human Tongue! We proudly manufacture our science puzzles in the US. We hope to instill a love for learning, and cater to the diversity of learning styles among children.
