Tag Archives: circulatory system

Human Body: Printables

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Our human body project is over. I still can’t believe it! This is a quick run down of all the printables we used while learning about the human body. I will break down the post by systems/sections of the body.  This post has materials for the body chart only- so if you want to do some of the science experiments, click on the title of each section. It will take you to the blog post on that specific topic where you can get more ideas for science experiments, videos, and more.

Before starting, trace your child’s body on a large piece of butcher paper. I used packaging paper from Amazon- we got a ton since we did a lot of online Christmas shopping. After tracing the body- cut out two copies. MAKE SURE that all three body outlines line up. Learn from my mistake! FYI- I will be referring to these cutouts throughout this post as “body charts”.

Skeletal System (click on this link for more ideas)

Materials:

  • body chart
  • child-size skeleton printout from eSkeletons. (I had to make some adjustments- my daughter isn’t quite that tall yet, so I shrunk the size a bit before printing. Due to size issues, I also had to add a different pelvic bone (found here), ribs (found here), and I ended up drawing a skull.
Favorites: The skull and ribs with flaps- designed to add the brain and heart/lungs.
Suggestions: Be prepared to do a little bone surgery- the fingers in the skeleton might not align with your childs handprint on their body chart.
Nervous System (click on this link for more ideas)
Materials:
  • body chart
  • paper cut out of the brain (I did a google search and came up with this one, but there are a ton available!
Favorites: The fact that the brain is inside the skull
Suggestions: We just did the brain, looking back I would do the entire nervous system. This could easily be achieved with embroidery floss for the nerves, and colored cellophane over the spine (or just yarn) for the spinal column.
Lymphatic System (click on this link for more ideas)
Materials:
  • body chart
  • green embroidery floss (lymph vessels)
  • green and white paint (to be used as the lymph nodes and white blood cells)
  • green paper for a spleen
Favorites: the subject material- my daughter is really curious about her germs, and I liked that it wasn’t a  cut and paste activity but we were able to use paint and string
Suggestions: Gluing the embroidery floss on the body chart was difficult- we had to switch to tape, it worked much better for us, and I was able to move it around later on when I had to do some trimming
Respiratory System (click on this link for more ideas)
Materials:
  • body chart
  • lungs (clipart from Kidopo)
  • bubble wrap (air in our lungs)
  • blue paper for a diaphragm
Favorites: we made a model of a lung- by far my favorite part of the activity (click here for more information)
Suggestions: Use 2 pieces of straw as the trachea and upper throat. We didn’t add this until we were working on the digestive system and needed to make an esophagus.
Circulatory System (click on this link for more ideas)
Materials:
  • body chart
  • red and blue embroidery floss (arteries and veins)
  • heart (clipart from Phillip Martin)
Favorites: I really liked using the embroidery floss for the blood vessels.
Suggestions: I tried adding a few capillaries here and there- but it was getting too detailed so I didn’t really pursue it. I also wished I would have invested in a stethoscope.
Digestive System (click on this link for more ideas)
Materials:
  • body chart
  • white, pink, and blue straws (upper throat, esophagus, and trachea)
  • digestive system cutout (I think this is the one I used, but I am not sure…. I did print it in black and white)
Favorites: The Youtube video on the digestive system– it was a WINNER with my daughter
Suggestions: Try the science experiments from our blog, and you could add the vocab word rectum. I just couldn’t bring myself to talking about that word YET, and as you probably know from viewing the rest of these posts, we did leave out a few body systems that were a little mature for my 4 year old)
Urinary System (click on this link for more ideas)
Materials:
  • body chart
  • yellow paper for a bladder, urethra, ureter, kidneys
Favorites: Probably the kidney experiment and the fact that my daughter drew and cut out the different parts of this system
Suggestions: Talk more about the importance of drinking water
Muscular System (click on this link for more ideas)
Materials:
  • body chart
  • red plastic tablecloth (from dollar tree)
Favorites: I love the transparency of the muscular layer, however this brings me to my suggestion…
Suggestions: Using one of the copies of your body chart, glue the muscle layer on the back. TRUST ME- having a plastic layer that won’t stay in place is a bit of a headache.
Eye (click on this link for more ideas)
Materials:
  • body chart
  • clear plastic sheet protector (glue on top of the eye as the cornea)
  • white, black, and blue (or whatever color your child’s irises are) paper
Favorites: The plastic cornea. This is one of my favorite things about our body chart.
Suggestions: We could have done SO much more with the eye- optical illusions, perception, using telescopes and binoculars, etc. A lesson on using all 5 senses would fit nicely here, too!
Skin and Hair (click here for more ideas)
Materials:
  • body chart
  • 2 copies of your body chart (one for the skin, one for the clothes- just cut off the head, hands, and feet)
  • yarn (hair and eyebrows)
  • construction paper, material for clothes
  • red paper for lips
  • paint for skin
Favorites: the eye and mouth openings that show off our teeth and eyes
Suggestions: MAKE SURE that all three copies are the same size. After a month of learning, it was pretty frustrating to find out that our poor body chart was made with three different sizes!
Favorite Reference Books
Uncover the Human Body– we love the 3D model of the body
Human Body Encyclopedia for Kids (I can’t find it online)
Favorite Online Resources
Youtube- check out the schoolhouse rocks science clips
For more ideas on teaching the human body, check out my human body board on Pinterest!
Have a great time learning about the human body! This is a wonderful educational journey that I hope you and your little ones can take… there is so much to learn about!
Happy Teaching!

Human Body: Circulatory System

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It’s time for another post on the human body! Today we talked about the circulatory system…. more specifically the heart, arteries, veins, and lungs. Before we set out for our activities I had two goals: First, I wanted my daughter to know that the red arteries deliver oxygen, while the blue veins carry out the “garbage” (the term carbon dioxide was not part of today’s lesson!!) The second goal was to add the circulatory system to our human body.

Two ways to teach your child about the circulatory system:
I drew an enormous chalk figure of the human body in our unfinished basement, and made sure to include the trachea, lungs, heart, arteries, and veins. I also pulled out my red and blue unifix cubes for the blood. I also grabbed some cans of silly string we had sitting around.
Example #1: We tossed all the red cubes in a ginormous dump truck from my daughter’s sandbox. I told Boo that the blood goes to the lungs to get air, then we blew on the red blocks. We delivered red oxygenated blood by “driving” the truck down the arteries and tossing red blocks throughout the body.

Dispersing the oxygenated blood by driving the truck down the artery path.

The dump truck then turned around, and drove up the veins while Boo picked up the blue blocks- AKA garbage (for older kids I would use the term carbon dioxide!).

Collecting the garbage (carbon dioxide) into the dump truck and driving it back to the heart up the vein path.

When the truck got back to the lungs, it dumped out the garbage, then we ran it up the trachea and breathed it out! I know a lot of the technical stuff may not be remembered, but we had fun…and at the end of the day, thats what counts.

Example #2:  We cleaned up the blocks and played the game again, but this time we used silly string. And it was a lot more captivating. We started at the heart, went to the lungs to get our air, then back down the heart and into the arteries. My daughter enjoyed squirting the silly string throughout the body, although she had a difficult time pushing down on the valve. The silly string…I mean oxygen…. was picked up in the trusty dump truck along the vein path and hauled away to the lungs, were it was exhaled.

After picking up the carbon dioxide (silly string), Boo dumped it into the lungs. Right after doing this,  she picked up the silly string and exhaled it by running up the trachea and out the mouth.

After our kinesthetic illustrations of the circulatory system, we went upstairs and added the components to our human body chart. The heart was printed out from this site, and the veins and arteries were pieces of old embroidery floss (yarn would work just as well).

Look at our body develop- this is turning out to be such a fun project!!

We had plans to make a stethoscope and listen to our heart beats, but that didn’t happen…. we were able to  feel our heart beats with our hands before and after running around. This is a great time to discuss why our heart beats increase when we exercise and the importance of oxygen to our muscles.

I couldn’t resist adding this cute School House Rock video on the circulatory system. It’s classic, educational film at it’s best.


For more ideas on the human body, follow my board on pinterest!

Happy Teaching!

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