Human Body Homeschool Class - The Heart

Here's a Homeschool Lesson for Amy, Betsy and anyone else who enjoys these tidbits. :-) This was the lesson about the Heart last week in Co-Op.



We have explored many systems of the body, and we are now studying the circulatory system. Today's focus was the HEART!





Kaelyn impressed everyone with her human body model that she had made at home and brought in for class. (The class earns a "treat" out of my Reward Box if they learn something about the body and share it with the class.) Kaelyn had worked very hard on this life-size model!

Today there were three activities for the kids. Each one was designed to help them understand the function and purpose of the heart.

First, the children had to pass cups of water from one bucket to another at the same rate as their heartbeats. For a child, this is about 90 times a minute! Needless to say, the children started fast, but ended s-l-o-w. It was an excellent way for them to realize how hard our heart works to keep our body going! Whew!

FYI, did you know your heart pumps your blood about 12,000 miles per day! That would be all the way across America four times - in one day! Amazing!

Second, the children made their own stethoscope. The first stethoscope was invented in 1816 by a French Physician. The first model was basically a cylinder of rolled up paper! Therefore, the children stepped back into history and made their own out of a paper towel tube! The outside of the stethoscope was covered with amazing facts about our heart!





FYI, did you know your heart beats about 100,000 times per day or 35,000,000 times in one year! AMAZING!

Third, the best way to learn about the heart - touch one - feel one - hold one - play with one! (Yes, I have lost my mind!) I brought in a pig's heart for the children to explore. The children got to put their finger into the pulmonary artery, explore the right and left atriums, examine the aorta, etc... (Actually, only the boys were brave enough to touch it, but the girls all squealed and made faces!! Eeeww!! Gross!!)

FYI, did you know your the pulmonary artery is your largest artery. It is almost the diameter of a garden hose! (Wow!) Capillaries, on the other hand, are so small it would take 10 of them to equal the thickness of a human hair! (How about that?!) Finally, if you connected your system of blood vessels - arteries, veins, and capillaries - they would measure over 60,000 miles! That is enough to stretch around the world 2 1/2 times! (And some people believe we evolved from dust! Huh?! That is AMAZING!)

The last thing you need to know about the heart - yes, your lesson is almost over - is that there are over 60 verses in the Bible that say something about our heart! God's Word says our hearts should be clean, pure, true, joyful, upright, whole an tender. God's Word even says sometimes we are to have a broken and contrite heart! Finally, we are to LOVE GOD with all of our heart!

Now you know about our AMAZING heart!!