Introduction Activity

Play Heartbeat related song – “Alors on Danse” song is playing as students come into class. This will inspire curiosity among them.

Ask the students to listen to the song and feel the beat. Relate the song to the rhythm or beat of the heart- the heart maintains this rhythm/ beat.

Questions re. the song- What does it remind us of? What does it resemble? A: it is like a pulse. Ask students: Where do we feel the pulse in the body?

Pulse exercise – Group circle, holding hands. Going one direction, one student passes a gentle hand squeeze to another and then it’s passed on around the circle. It is like a heartbeat. Instruct it to go faster or slower. You can also do the exercise with the song above playing and the students keeping to the beat of the song.

Ask the students to imagine their heart pumping in their body– it is a muscle that never stops.

Physical exercise -Jumping Jacks – the students continuously do jumping jacks in the space. Eventually their muscles will get tired and they will stop. Tell them “Imagine if you had to keep going, that’s what the heart does. It is a muscle that never stops”

If there is limited space, do hand squeezes instead, squeezing the hand over and over.

Storytelling – Hand to heart

Ask if the students have ever been to a big game before e.g. a football match.

Ask: What do the players and supporters do beforehand? They stand, hand on heart and sing the national anthem. Ask them about their own experiences at matches, allow teachers and students to exchange their own stories. What other times would you put your hand on your heart?

Ask: So where is the heart? Actually? Students put their hands where they think their heart is. Inform the students it’s only a little to the left.

See Creative Technique 34. Storytelling

Students sit. They receive a cut-out of a heart diagram.

Smart board- Put up a blank/ non-labelled picture of the heart (after asking students which is the right way up for the diagram.)

Ask students to fill out the labels of the heart in pencil (allow them to get the left/ right labels wrong! i.e. before correcting them.)

Explain the 4 blood vessels connected to the heart and de-oxygenated and oxygenated blood.

Students wear their heart cut-outs/ diagrams as badges – on the correct side of their bodies.

Smart board- Put up a blank/ non-labelled picture of the heart (after asking students which is the right way up for the diagram.)

Ask students to fill out the labels of the heart in pencil (allow them to get the left/ right labels wrong! i.e. before correcting them.)

Development Activity

Physicalize 4 chambers of heart – Floor exercise

Part 1

Draw out the 4 chambers on the ground (using tape or chalk).
Hand out cards with the names of the four chambers of the heart to four
students and ask them to stand in the proper place on the drawn-out heart on the floor. One student can represent the LA, another the RA, another the RV and another the LV. They hold cards to show which they are. Then ask other students to check the placement. Once placement is correct, the name cards can be put on the floor in the marked-out heart.

Add lungs and organs to the drawing on the floor. A student can represent the lungs. Another student represents the organs. Hand out cards and let them stand in the right place.

* higher level of difficulty: distinguish between organs (liver, intestine etc.)

Add blood vessels to the drawing.

Hand out cards with the names of blood vessels that are connected to the heart. Let students place themselves on the proper place, holding the cards. Then ask other students to check the placement.

Once placement is correct, the name cards can be put down on the floor in the marked-out blood vessels.

Acting out blood flow:

Another student will now be the red blood cell going in and out of heart chambers in the appropriate directions. A red and blue symbol can be used for the student to hold when they are oxygenated and de-oxygenated i.e. they may be holding a blue card but it will be replaced with a red card when they pass through the lungs, and red will be replaced by blue when they pass through organs.

Part 2

Ask the students: What have we not mentioned yet?

A: Valves – What are they? Where are they?
Students mark them out.
Labels can be placed on the marked-out heart on the floor.
Do the student/ blood flow again – explain the student can’t go back – they
can only go in one direction.

Valves = Open/ close doors – Bouncer Analogy – bouncer will let you out at closing time but won’t let you back in to the beat in the club. Four students will stand in the heart in the place of the four valves, letting the red blood cell pass through in one direction, but not back.
Note: The exercise above can also be done on a huge piece of paper on the
ground, labelling the blood flow, the chambers, the vessels and the valves etc. Other options are doing it with sand, masking tape, chalk, even on the sand on the be Students label their own diagrams in pen and colours.

Consolidation of Learning

Physical exercise – “I am the Heart” – Group physicalizing and knowing the parts of the heart.

See Creative Technique 17. “I am the Tree!”

Give Exam style question to students to answer:

Example: Describe route of a red blood cell from lungs, travelling through the body, until it ends up back in the lungs.

Homework: Learn the heart diagram

Play the song from earlier Stromae – Alors On Danse

Unison Clap- Start as normal and then to the beat of the heart / the song.

See Creative Technique 35. Unison Clap