The heart, blood & circulatory system are usually covered in year 6. I won’t attempt to duplicate the multitude of excellent resources that are available: I here signpost you towards what I feel are most appropriate and add in my cross-curricular selection of activities to reinforce the learning.
Heart & lung dissection videos
This is the firm that I used to buy dissection supplies. They have excellent videos of all the common dissections & supporting lesson plans too. It’s NOT gory, I promise! You do need to register to view the content but it’s free and there are no resulting ads or hassle.
Beating heart gif
I use this on every heart lesson. Superb animation. Looks like heart has been cut in half but still beats, showing all the valves opening & closing. How quickly it beats depends on your computer!
Download it from Wikipedia here – it’s permitted for non-profit use.
Diagrams to label / colour
SO many to choose from! Royal Society for Pathology has a stunning drawing to label & colour, plus a nice origami activity too.
Teaching Tips – for teachers & parents
A compilation of top tips to help you & your pupils to remember all of the facts & details, plus avoiding common misconceptions, including deoxygenated blood being ‘blue’
Wordsearch
Heart & lung vocabulary (25 words) in a bumper wordsearch.
Crossword
25 heart & lung vocab terms to fit into the grid. The clues are in different forms: standard ‘clues’, code to break (A=1 B=2 C=3), mixed up letters to unscramble, fill in the words missing from the paragraph, and some words to just fit in & write your own clue. Page 1 is the blank grid. Page 2 has initial letters for a bit of extra help. Solution is on p3.
Vocab cards for games
Just some key words to cut out and play as quick games to reinforce the vocab and meanings. Suggested games are on the sheet.
Spellings 1
Diaphragm has a silent g, and trachea has the ‘ch’ making a /k/ sound. Use the clues to find more words with similar patterns, including words from the national curriculum. 2nd page has initial letters to help. P3 has the answers (Now updated with correct p1!)
Spellings 2
If, like me, you struggle with whether it’s vien or vein, here’s a set of ie/ei words to find. Also word with prefixes meaning two, like bicuspid valve and carbon dioxide. 2nd page has initial letters to help. p3 has the answers
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Science At Home With Lisa 