American Heart Month is a great time to have a heart to heart talk with learners—about hearts! Howtosmile.org gets to the heart of the matter with physical, outdoor, indoor and online activities about how the heart and circulatory system work.
Learners get moving to music, then measure the changes in their heart function, in Heart Rate and Exercise. This activity could be combined with music time or indoor recess. You can also connect it with lessons on living in space, since the activity PDF includes descriptions and photos of astronauts exercising in space so they won’t lose critical heart muscle mass.
If weather allows, head outdoors for the Cardiac Hill activity, where learners measure their pulse after walking up different slopes. Learners then use the data from their own circulatory response to plan the maximum steepness for public hiking trails.
Online activities let learners see “inside” the body to discover just how the heart does its job wherever we are, and how doctors help people whose hearts aren’t working right. In Open Heart: Disease and Diagnosis, learners “become” cardiologists to diagnose and prescribe treatments for heart disease patients. In Open Heart: Virtual Bypass Surgery, learners find out from a virtual surgeon how lifesaving heart surgery is done.