PreK Science: Heart & Blood Flow

With our focus being on hearts and love, no better way to introduce how the heart works, right?! That is exactly what we did this week...


First thing I did was draw a human body on a sheet of paper with a heart and a pair of lungs.

I then told my son that the heart pumps blood out one side and into the lung to get air.  When the blood gets to the lung, I said "QUICK! I NEED AIR!" and then the blood with "air" goes to the parts of the body where it's needed.  For example, if we are running, I asked my son where would the blood with "air" need to go? He said to the feet! Yes, the blood would flow to the feet and legs where it's needed most.  And once the blood delivers the "air" that is needed the blood then flows back up to the heart through tubes called veins (in blue on the diagram) to be pumped back out and do it again.

To help sink in that a heart is a strong but fragile muscle that can pump fast or slow, I filled a balloon up with a little bit of water and tied it off.

I had him squeeze the balloon to realize the heart has to be strong to "pump" out blood.  I asked him if the shape changed at all - we saw it only changes when it's pumping, but returns back to it's original shape.  Then we jumped up and down to get our "own" heart beats going real fast.  I had him feel my heart race and then had him squeeze the balloon to mimic how fast a heart beats after we exercise.  Then we laid down for a few minutes to have our hearts slow down in pace.  He felt my heart beat and squeezed the balloon to mimic how slow a heart beats after we lay down.  

Then we made homemade stethoscopes...

We took a paper towel tube and covered it with white paper.  Then he painted it.  We found out how to mix primary colors to make other colors we didn't have paint for.  And then he realized that white paint when painted over the other colors on the tube makes a rainbow effect.

After the tube dried, he listened to daddy's heart beat... (yes, this really does work!)

That was our science for this week, we'll expand on it for next week.

Have Fun and Be a Blessing!

~Bekah

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