Learning About the Heart and Lungs

We have been learning about the human body with our weekly project group. We have already looked at the skeleton and the brain. This time we learnt about the heart and lungs.

I found this book at a local charity shop recently and the children have loved looking at all the pop-ups and lifting the flaps.

Here is the section about breathing and blood. As you can see, there is a great pop-up. There is even sound effects of the beating heart!

Next we listened to songs about the heart and lungs. This was our favourite about the heart.

During the start of the session we always have circle time. This is when we introduce the topic and do some partner or teamwork. We spoke about what the lungs and the heart do to keep us alive. We discussed what happens when we breath and did a simple experiment to see how much our lungs expand when we take a deep breath.

To do this experiment you will need some wool. First, measure around your child's chest at rest using the wool. Then ask the child to estimate how much their chest will expand when they take a deep breath (we used the blue wool in the picture above). Then ask them to take a deep breath and measure around their chest again. You can see the difference in the measurements in the picture above. All the children overestimated how much their lungs would expand! This was a really good activity to introduce estimates to the children.

Next we moved to the tables for some practical work. First, we made some blood in a bottle. We talked about the components of blood and what they do. We used water for the plasma which we coloured red with food colouring. Then we added hoop cereal for the red blood cells, white marshmallows for the white blood cells and lentils for the platelets. The children loved this activity and enjoyed eating the left over ingredients!

Here are our finished bottles of blood!

Finally, we made replicas of the lungs using plastic bottles and balloons. To do this, cut the bottom off the plastic bottle. Then, place one balloon inside the bottle to represent the lung. Finally, cut the top off another balloon and stretch it over the open bottom of the bottle to represent the diaphragm. 

We also filled out a few worksheets about the heart and lungs. This one labels the different parts of the heart.

We have had lots of fun learning about the heart and lungs. Have you learnt about these organs yet in your homeschool? What did you do to learn about them?