Human Body Camp Day 1

Some quick notes and resources for our first day's topic, which was The Nation of the Great River and The Circulatory System.

Remember that all of my notes for this main lesson block can be found in much more detail on my website.

The Nation of the Great River

• begin by having the girls make a web on a huge sheet of chart paper -- "What do you already know about the human body?" -- using black pens to show prior knowledge
• finger knit with red a long piece of yarn and lay it out on the floor to be the Great River; add index cards with the names of the President, the Cabinet, and the different Departments
• read The Story of the Great River

The Circulatory System

read "Heart: The Double-Barreled Pumper" chapter from Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides, stopping as follows:
• at the end of page 49, watch the Meet the Heart video by the Khan Academy (this video happens to be a really good complement to the Great River analogy)
• at the top of page 50, do the Tennis Ball Squeeze activity
• at the top of page 51, talk about how a seashell sounds like the ocean but it's really magnifying the sound of the blood rushing through your head, do the Stethoscope activity, and use a blood pressure cuff to take your partner's blood pressure
• at the bottom of page 52, look at the Artery vs. Vein transparency (pictured above, also see note below) and then watch the How a Healthy Heart Pumps Blood video by the American Heart Association
• on page 54, do the Under Your Tongue activity
• at the bottom of page 55, do the Matchstick Pulse Meter activity
• at the bottom of page 57, do the Stress Test activity
• look at the human blood smear under a microscope, #25 from our set of 25 prepared microscope slides
• read the Amazing Facts on page 58
• review all vocabulary using the Circulatory System three-part cards from the ETC Montessori material for Human Physiology

Note: we didn't do these but "Returning to the Heart" on pages 16 & 17 of Easy Genius Science Projects with the Human Body: Great Experiments and Ideas has several neat hands-on activities that would be a very good follow up to the valves in the veins.

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