Body & wellness activity
Blood Highway
Your blood is always on a journey! Use red and blue yarn to show where blood goes and how it comes back.
Materials and setup
- red and blue yarn (Pre-K)
- paper and crayons
- construction paper (Early Elem)
- cardboard tube (Early Elem)
- paper towel tube (Early Elem)
- tape, scissors
How this changes by age
Pre-K (ages 3–4)
Your blood is always on a journey! Use red and blue yarn to show where blood goes and how it comes back.
Steps
- Lay down on a big paper and get a body outline traced (or reuse the Skeleton Crew poster).
- Tape a big red heart shape in the middle of the chest.
- Lay red yarn from the heart out to fingertips and toes — 'red yarn means fresh blood carrying oxygen'.
- Lay blue yarn from fingertips and toes back to the heart — 'blue yarn means blood coming home to get more oxygen'.
- Pretend to be a blood drop: start at the heart, march out to your fingers along the red path, then march back along the blue path. 'Red goes out, blue comes back!'
- Put your hand on your wrist and feel your pulse. 'That's the blood pushing through!'
Learning objectives
- Identify the heart as the pump that moves blood
- Understand that blood travels out and comes back in a loop
- Associate red with oxygen-carrying blood
Kindergarten (ages 5–6)
Trace the full blood loop: heart to body, back to heart, to lungs for oxygen, back to heart again. It's a figure-8!
Steps
- Draw a figure-8 on paper. Label the crossing point in the middle as 'Heart'. The top loop goes to 'Lungs'. The bottom loop goes to 'Body'.
- Use a red crayon to trace: heart → body → ... then switch to blue: body → heart → lungs. At the lungs, switch back to red: lungs → heart → body. The red means oxygen-rich; blue means oxygen-used.
- Explain out loud what happens at each stop: 'At the body, muscles grab oxygen to work. At the lungs, blood picks up fresh oxygen.'
- Clap the heart rhythm: 'lub-DUB, lub-DUB'. Two claps close together, then a pause, then two again. The 'lub' is one valve closing, the 'DUB' is another.
- Count your own pulse for 15 seconds at the wrist. Multiply by 4 for BPM. How many times does blood complete the whole figure-8 loop in a minute? (Answer: about that many — 1 full loop per beat!)
- Draw and label a simple figure-8 diagram to keep in a binder.
Learning objectives
- Trace the figure-8 double-loop circulatory pattern
- Describe oxygen exchange at both the lungs and the body
- Recognize the lub-dub heart sound as valve closures
Early elementary (ages 6–8)
Build a paper model of the 4-chamber heart showing how the atria and ventricles work. Valves are one-way doors — learn why they matter.
Steps
- Research heart anatomy: 4 chambers — right atrium, right ventricle, left atrium, left ventricle. 4 valves — tricuspid (between right atrium and right ventricle), pulmonary (right ventricle exit), mitral (between left atrium and left ventricle), aortic (left ventricle exit).
- Draw a big labeled heart on construction paper showing all 4 chambers with arrows for blood flow direction. Include: blue blood entering the right atrium from the body, going to the right ventricle, out to the lungs; red blood returning from lungs into the left atrium, to the left ventricle, out to the body via the aorta.
- Build a valve model: cut a small flap of paper and tape one edge to a cardboard tube. Blow air one way — flap opens. Blow the other way — flap closes. That's a valve: blood can only flow one direction.
- Listen to your heart with a 'stethoscope' made from a paper towel tube. The 'lub' sound is the mitral and tricuspid valves closing; the 'dub' is the aortic and pulmonary valves closing.
- Explain in 3 sentences why one-way valves matter. (Without them, blood would slosh backward and tissues wouldn't get the oxygen they need. Leaky valves = heart murmur.)
- Extension: research one type of heart disease (arrhythmia, heart murmur, or congenital heart defect). Write 3 sentences.
Learning objectives
- Label the 4 heart chambers and 4 valves correctly
- Model and explain why heart valves are one-directional
- Connect heart sounds to valve events
Upper elementary (ages 8–10)
Write a 'Day in the Life of a Red Blood Cell' narrative that traces the systemic + pulmonary circuits, then calculate how much blood your heart moves in a day.
Steps
- Research: an average adult heart pumps ~5 liters of blood per minute at rest, or ~7,500 liters per day. A kid's heart pumps less but beats faster — calculate your own daily output using your resting BPM × an estimated 50 mL stroke volume (for kids around 8-10).
- Map the two circuits in detail on paper: (1) Pulmonary circuit — right atrium → right ventricle → pulmonary artery → lungs (gas exchange) → pulmonary vein → left atrium. (2) Systemic circuit — left atrium → left ventricle → aorta → body tissues → superior/inferior vena cava → right atrium.
- Research red blood cell facts: lives ~120 days, made in bone marrow, carries oxygen via hemoglobin (iron-based protein that gives blood its red color), ~25 trillion in your body, one cell completes a full body loop in about 20 seconds.
- Write a 1-page first-person narrative: 'I am a red blood cell named Ruby. I was born in bone marrow 60 days ago...' Include 4 specific stops: lungs, heart chambers, a muscle (pick one: bicep, calf, brain), and a kidney.
- Research white blood cells (3 types: neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes) and platelets (clotting). Add a paragraph on what Ruby might have seen her fellow blood cells doing.
- Create a graphic for your narrative: label the organs Ruby passes through on a body outline.
- Extension: research blood types (A, B, AB, O + Rh positive/negative). Why can type O give to anyone? Why can type AB receive from anyone?
Learning objectives
- Trace the systemic and pulmonary circuits with correct chamber order
- Calculate daily cardiac output using stroke volume and BPM
- Explain red blood cell, white blood cell, and platelet functions
Safety and evidence note
Read the full activity before beginning. An adult should supervise tools, heat, food, outdoor work, movement, and experiments as appropriate. Completion records that the activity was done; the child’s explanation, work sample, photo, or demonstration is stronger evidence of learning than a completion check alone.
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