Fun Ways I Teach Flow of Blood Through Heart

My goal in this blog post is to inspire you to try some of the engaging activities I use to teach my students the flow of blood through heart. Check out the ways I try to incorporate different learning modalities to help each individual student learn the movement of blood in the heart.

Label & Color Code Diagram to Show Flow of Blood in Heart

I give students a heart diagram that they must label first the important structures, but then they must also color code. I have them color-code the sides of the heart and the structures that carry oxygenated blood and deoxygenated blood. This visual helps them to see what structures pump blood to the body and which structures pump blood to the lungs. This also helps give them some visual cues on where the blood is coming from and where it will go next. 

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Flow of Blood Through Heart Manipulatives

This is Blood Flow Manipulatives Activity one of my favorite activities I do with my students. This will really help them learn the flow of blood steps in order and help them actually remember it. I have separate cards for the valves, heart chambers, & vessels of the heart. I give them a starting point and from there we follow the pathway as if we were one red blood cell. The students first place the heart chambers in order. We then move on to the vessels, and then the valves. Once all of these are in order, I have students place next to each structure whether it carries oxygenated or deoxygenated blood. This is another awesome visual. I have them repeat this several times and give them a new starting location each time. If you really wanted to, you could spark a competition of who could assemble it correctly the fastest. 

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Sheep Heart Dissection

If you have been around here awhile, you know I love a good dissection. This one is super simple and does not disappoint. Students are able to have a tactile object in their hand to see the structure in a living organism. Even though it is not a human, sheep’s hearts serve as a great example of what our human hearts are structured like. I give students a simple dissection handout to follow and let them kind of poke around to see the valves and what chambers they lead to. This one doesn’t take long, but it is so worth the time. 

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Flow of Blood from Heart to Lungs YouTube Videos 

I am a huge believer in showing as many visuals to students as possible because still images do not show the complexity of the human body. These two flow of blood videos are great for showing the pathway as blood flows through each part of the heart. You can also post these on your class blog so students can go back to them anytime they want.

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ONE | Blood Flow Through the Heart Made Easy

TWO | Blood Flow Through Heart in 2 Minutes

So there you have it. 4 ways that I teach flow of blood through heart. I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, I’d love if you would share it with one of you teacher friends. 🙂 

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