Where Are Your Fontanelles, Philip Crowther?

by Greg Crowther

On "Take Your Child to Work Day" in 2015, my UW-Bothell Biology 241 class was covering the skeleton, so I wrote this simple nursery rhyme-style song for us to sing to my then-8-year-old son.

Where are your fontanelles, Philip Crowther?
Where are your fontanelles, Philip?
Where are your fontanelles, Philip Crowther?
Where are your fontanelles, Philip?

Now all your fontanelles are filled up with bone!
Now all his fontanelles are filled up!
Intramembranous ossification
Closed up the fontanelles of Philip!

• MP3 (demo)

• sheet music (with melody play-back)

Songs like this one can be used during class meetings and/or in homework assignments. Either way, the song will be most impactful if students DO something with it, as opposed to just listening.

An initial, simple follow-up activity could be to answer the study questions below. A more extensive interaction with the song might entail (A) learning to sing it, using an audio file and/or sheet music as a guide, and/or (B) illustrating it with pictures, bodily poses, and/or bodily movements. The latter activity could begin with students identifying the most important or most challenging content of the song, and deciding how to illustrate that particular content.

(1) What are the advantages of having fontanelles?

(2) When in development do the fontanelles disappear?