Topic: Circulatory system – the body’s roads and motorways

Target group

4th‑grade students of elementary school

Core curriculum

4th grade of elememtary school.
IV. Me and my body. Student:

1. lists the systems that build the human body: the skeletal, respiratory, digestive, blood, reproductive and nervous systems and gives their basic functions;

2. indicates on the board, model and own body systems that build the human body and sensory organs;

General aim of education

Students describe the structure and function of the circulatory system

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• describe the role of blood in the process of breathing and nutrition;

• distinguish between arteries and veins;

• discuss the importance of the heart in blood circulation.

Methods/techniques

• expository

  • talk.

• activating

  • discussion.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• notebook and crayons/felt‑tip pens;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers;

• large plastic container, soaked red hydrogel balls, white ping‑pong balls, light yellow water and colorless foam foil;

• watch with a second hand.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

• Students get acquainted with the content of the abstract. They prepare to work on the lesson in such a way to be able to summarize the material read in their own words and solve the tasks themselves.

• The teacher invites a school nurse to classes.

Introduction

• The teacher gives the topic, the goals of the lesson in a language understandable for the student, and the criteria of success.

Realization

• The teacher writes on the board and explains five or more new English words related to the subject of the lesson. Then the teacher plays the audio recording of the abstract, asking the students to raise their hands when they hear one of the written on the board words. Lesson participants can also note how many times they have captured a given word.

• The teacher asks students to read from the abstract paragraph What is blood made up of? and a comparison of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets in Gallery 1. The teacher then prepares the blood model with the students - explaining the proportions to the pupils (soaked gel balls in red are erythrocytes, white pingpong balls are leukocytes, and pieces of colorless foam are tiles). Then add the right amount of light yellow water as an example of plasma. Students explain which blood cells are the most and why human blood has a certain color.

• The teacher asks pupils to search in the first paragraph of what the circulatory system is built of. The teacher displays the table to the students, in which the selected student writes these elements in the following columns. Then the students read the paragraph How do the heart and blood vessels work? and look for information about the role of each element and write it in the table below. Selected students read the information, the teacher corrects their correctness.

• The teacher asks students what is the pulse? The lecturer invites you to a school nurse classes, which will show students how to correctly measure their heart rate. The teacher instructs the pupils to write down the research question and the hypothesis in the form in the abstract. Then the students perform the experiment, record their observations and conclusions. The teacher indicates the person who shares his insights and explains the reasonableness of the conclusions he has made.

Summary

• The teacher asks students to carry out the recommended interactive exercise themselves.

Homework

• Make at home a note from the lesson using the sketchnoting method.

• Listen to the abstract recording at home. Pay attention to pronunciation, accent and intonation. Learn to pronounce the words learned during the lesson.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Circulatory system – the body’s roads and motorways

The digestive and respiratory systems deliver oxygen and nutrients to the body. They have to reach all cells in the body. However, it’s also necessary to remove waste, i.e. carbon dioxide and harmul metabolic products. This is done by the cardiovascular system composes of the heart and blood vessels. It may be compared to a complex network of roads that travel trough the entire body. The major roads are arteries and veins, whereas the capillaries are local roads. Blood flows are as a result of the heart beating.

Contrary to appearanes, blood is not only a liquid. It also contains blood cells. The most common are red blood cells that carry oxygen and carbon dioxide. In addition, there are also white blood cells that protect the body from illnesses and blood platelets that are involved in the formation of blood clots, if a blood vessel is damaged. The liquid part of blood is known as plasma, which is composed mainly of water, dissolved proteins and other substances.

As you already know, the circulatory system is composed of the heart and blood vessels. The heart is an organ the size of a closed fist, located to the left side of the chest. It serves as a pump – rhytmically contracting and, by doing so, pumping blood to the arteries. Because this pump is very strong, arteries must be thick, resilient and elastic – otherwise they could tear under the force of blood being pumped. Arteries branch off into increasingly thinner arterioles until they become capillaries. Capillaries carry blood to all cells in the body. Blood then returns to the heart – this time through veins. Blood flows significantly slower and under lower pressure in veins than in the arteries, that’s why their walls are thinner and more fragile. Similarly to arteries, veins form a system of tubes with varied thickness – starting with thin veins which then merge into incresingly thicker veins until they become main veins that carry blood to the heart.

The heart contracts rhythmically, that’s why blood flows to the arteries in waves, causing their tissues to regularly expand slightly. This knowledge is helpful when measuring heart rate, also known as the pulse.

• Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to cells and removes carbon dioxide and metabollic products.

• The circulatory system is composed of the heart and blood vessels: veins, arteries and capillaries. Arteries are vessels through which blood leaves the heart, whereas veins are vessels through which blood returns to the heart.

• Blood is composed of plasma and blood cells: red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.