Objective
The students will complete fact statements about their hearts.

Materials

• Non-fiction books or web sites about the heart.  See the Heart Day Home Page for suggestions.  

• My Heart Worksheet

Procedure

1. Share the books or web sites with the students.  Focus on the facts that a heart is a muscle, it pumps blood out to the body, and finding a pulse is the means to count heartbeats per minute.

2. Pass out the My Heart Worksheet.  Depending on the age of the students, have them complete it individually or as a class.  To answer the final question regarding the heart beats per minute after exercise, have the students do jumping jacks or some other physical activity for 5 minutes to recheck their pulse.  Very young students  may  need adult help in finding and counting their pulse.  Older students my feel their own pulse, count it for six seconds and multiply it by 10.  This activity may be led by the teacher as appropriate.  (This may be a good day to have a parent helper or two to help young students with the pulse part of the activity.)

Other Lesson Ideas

1. After listening to information from nonfiction books and the internet, have the students list heart facts on heart shaped paper.

2. Have the students simulate blood circulating through the body.  Set up a path in the classroom in which students pick up cards or pieces of paper with Os written on them, standing for oxygen, in the lung section of the room.  They will then travel out through "the body", following artery paths, dropping off the Os and picking up CO (for Carbon Dioxide) to return to the heart following vein paths.  The artery path may be marked with a red piece of yarn and the vein path with a blue piece of yarn.

3. Have a cardiologist come talk to the class.

4. List heart healthy foods and activities.

5. Have the students listen to each others' hearts using a stethoscope or a paper towel tube.