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Learning About The Human Body Part 2: The Respiratory And Circulatory Systems

We've been studying the human body the last few months. We started with the skeletal and muscular systems, if you haven't read Part 1 of my Learning About The Human Body series, you can read it here. In it I share several activities and resources for learning about the skeletal and muscular systems. 

After the skeletal and muscular systems, we moved onto the respiratory and circulatory systems. We had an especially good time studying these two systems. In this post I share some of the activities we did and resources we used to study them.
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The Human Respiratory System:
The respiratory system consists of our lungs, diaphragm, trachea, and bronchi. It's the system that is responsible for bringing oxygen into the body and releasing carbon dioxide from the body.


Build A Working Model Of The Respiratory System:
This activity is really neat! You will need:
-A 2 liter plastic bottle
-A balloon
-Some plastic wrap
-Duct tape
-A piece of construction paper

Start by cutting the two liter bottle in half. You will only need the top half.

Take the lid off the bottle and attach the balloon over the pour spout so that the balloon hangs INSIDE the bottle. The balloon will represent your lung.

Stretch plastic wrap across the open bottom of the bottle. Tape it in place so that it's pulled tightly in all directions.

With the construction paper, fashion a small handle and tape onto the bottom of the plastic wrap.

The bottle represents your chest cavity, the balloon is your lung, and the plastic wrap acts as your diaphragm. 

When you pull gently on the handle, your balloon should inflate, just like your lungs do when your diaphragm contracts!


Resources For Learning About The Respiratory System:

 -Respiratory System video from The Dr. Binocs Show- a fun video for kids all about the human respiratory system. 

 -Breathing And The Respiratory System from Ducksters- some general kid friendly information about the respiratory system and how it works.

 -Respiratory System from Kids Biology - All about the parts of the human respiratory system and how it works.

 -Measuring Lung Capacity- a fun experiment about lung capacity.

 -Respiratory System Model from Primary Theme Park is a fun hands on respiratory system activity.


 The Human Circulatory System
The circulatory system consists of the heart, veins, arteries, capillaries, and blood. This system is responsible for pumping oxygenated blood to all the cells of our body and carrying deoxygenated blood from the cells of our body back to the lungs to pick up more oxygen.

 Circulatory System Activity
Locate your pulse in your wrist or neck and practice counting heart beats.  Using a stop watch count how many heart beats you count in 10 seconds. Multiply this number by 6 to find out how many beats per minute. Record this number as your resting heart rate.

 Now run in place or do some jumping jacks for 2 minutes. Grab your stop watch and locate your pulse. Again, count how many heart beats you count in 10 seconds. Multiply by 6 and record this number as your heart rate after exercise.

 Our heart rates are higher after exercise than when we're at rest. This is because our muscles need more oxygen during exercise so our heart has to work harder and pump faster.
Resources For Learning About The Circulatory System:

 -How Your Heart Works video from The Dr. Binocs Show

 -Cardiovascular System from Duckster.com

 -Cardiovascular System from Kids Biology 

-Make A Blood Model- a fun activity where kids get to make a model of blood in water bottle.

 -Respiratory System Printables



If you haven't already, be sure to check out Part 1 of my Learning About The Human Body Series!

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  1. Kristen of A Mom's Quest to TeachOctober 25, 2018 at 10:20 AM

    Very cool! Thank you for gathering all this together. I may revisit it in the near future to share with my children.

    ReplyDelete

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