Simple science experiments are the best and this real heart anatomy lesson is one of our favorites!
So many people think about hearts about the cute romantic icon that has become popular. But the real heart is much different and this simple heart anatomy lesson will teach your child how different they really are.
This inflatable heart is a simple working model of a heart.
What Is A Heart?
The heart, the symbol so beautiful, is actually our cardiac muscle and is vital to our survival! It pumps our blood through our body which is what keeps us alive.
If you put your hand on the left side of your heart, I’m sure you can feel it. Bubum, bubum, bubum.
Learning About the Heart
Before making the heart craft, you could do some other cardiac learning activities:
- Take a toy stethoscope (or real stethoscope if you have one) and listen to the heart beats of each other
- Let the kids move to the rhythm of a song and afterward let them listen to the heartbeat of their neighbor’s heart
- Repeat this experiment while relaxing to compare their data – Remember to make a return on their observations and experiments.
- Read a book about the heart or to find a simple but realistic picture. With my son, we found that there is a vena cava and the aorta coming out of the heart. Then we saw that there are 2 ventricles in the heart , and finally, that there are cardiac veins and coronary arteries of the heart muscle.
Real Heart Anatomy Lesson
My son loves everything scientific, and these days he especially likes his book, Look into Your Body. Since then, he asked me many questions about bones, muscles and how our heart and brain works.
I thought and thought and thought…
Then I thought I found the solution!
I finally decided on a lesson: An inflatable heart it will be!
I love the process of creating. Sometimes my ideas end up in a cul de sac, sometimes they just do not work. Never despair. Each failure leads us to other avenues and who knows?
Perhaps it will be a good or better avenue. I started my process of creative thinking to make a heart with tulle and glue and finished with this inflatable heart.
This is what a real heart looks like.
Supplies Needed To Create an Inflatable Heart
Materials:
- A Ziploc bag
- Two straws (one red and one blue)
- Two pipe cleaners (one red and one blue)
- A large red marker to marker
- A hot glue gun
Get ready for this real heart anatomy lesson!
Creating Your Inflatable Heart
First, ask the children to color in red one side of the bag with the red marker.
Our inflatable heart has pipe cleaner veins and straws.
Then have them cut out the pipes cleaners in different lengths. You could leave a picture of the heart close so they can easily refer to it.
With caution, help the child glue his pipe cleaners on the bag to recreate the cardiac veins and coronary arteries.
Note: Make clear to the children that they have to make ONE cardiac vein (blue) and one coronary artery (red). The reason is to be able to recreate the three ventricles: the hot glue melts and merge the two sides together creating 3 different ventricles.
All they have to do now is to insert a blue and red straw and zip the bag.
Voila! Their heart is ready to beat the rhythm!
Starting Your Simple Heart Anatomy Lesson
Have the child gently blow into the straw and watch as the heart beats.
There is a little video in my original post that shows my son’ s heart beat. I love that my daughter is at his side is trying to imitate his brother.
A good example of vicarious learning!
Thanks so much to our guest blogger today, Caroline!
Blog: De tout et de rien: Activités pour le Préscolaire. My name is Caroline and I have a bachelor degree in psychology and in elementary teaching and preschool education. I moved from province of Québec (Canada) 4 years ago to the Unites States. My first language is French. I am now the proud mom of 2 bilingual children.
More Fun Science Lessons:
You can learn more about the body! We’ve learned about a special muscle now let’s learn about bones with this human skeleton anatomy activity. We also have other fun anatomy games you may be interested in. This one comes with a skeleton printable.
Interested in chemistry? We have this atom model project you might like as well.
Make sure you check out these other cool science experiments at home. There are so many to try! It is awesome.
