Parts of the Blood

This week as part of our continuing study of the human body we are learning about the parts of our blood.  I did a little demonstration at group time to illustrate this and also showed the children microscope images of the various parts.  Below you can see the little basket I put together for my demonstration.  It contains a jar of yellow water, a jar with cheerios, a jar with small white marshmallows, a shaker of salt, a bottle of red food coloring, a spoon, and a few purple porcupine balls.

 

First I asked the children what color their blood is when it comes out of a cut or scrape.  Then I told them that even though blood LOOKS red, the liquid part of it is actually yellow and is called plasma.  I then showed them the jar of yellow water as pictured below.

 

Next I explained that the blood contains salt and other chemicals and shook a little salt from the shaker into the yellow plasma.  Then I told them that there are other things floating in the blood that are very important for our bodies.  First, there are billions of red blood cells that look a little like donuts without a hole.  Their job is to carry oxygen.  There are so many of them floating in the plasma that it makes the blood look red.  At this point I dumped in the Cheerios to represent the red blood cells and squirted in some red food coloring.  Next, there are white blood cells. Their job is to fight germs and disease.   I added the marshmallows to represent the white blood cells.  And finally, there are platelets whose job is to help stop bleeding when we get injured.  I used the purple porcupine balls for the platelets because in our microscopic photo of the platelets, they somewhat resemble spiny balls that are purplish.  Below you can see our finished "blood."

   

 

As one of my afternoon students was leaving today, he showed me a small scab on his knee and told me that blood had come out.  And he said, "Then those purple things came over and stopped my blood from coming out."  I was pretty impressed that he had already applied this new knowledge from our group lesson.  Young children's brains are truly amazing..............a fact that was embraced deeply by Maria Montessori.  Isn't learning fun??

Comments

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[HappyCampers]

Thanks for posting this! It's exactly what I was looking for during our homeschool lesson on blood. we'll be making this on Thursday!

[Lindart]

This is wonderful!!! The children understand so much more if you give them a visual like this! I did something similar when I taught the children about germs. I made a bunch of purple dots from a hole puncher, then pretended to sneeze in circle by putting my dot filled hand over my mouth and nose - the purple dots went everywhere! Then I touched the person beside me - and there I left another few dots! I "coughed" on my assistant, and left lots more dots! The children were much more aware of how germs travel after that! I would hear "don't get your purple dots on me!" when someone started to cough, and they were much more aware of turning their heads away from people. Must do this again!! The initial idea came from my doctor!

[Shanna Black]

Miss Laura, was the student at the end of the day Jaxx?

[Elizabeth Ping]

I really like how this activity is set up. I will be difinitely using it with my boys! Thank you! :)

[maryanne]

Great lesson! I'll have to keep this in mind for when my kids are a little bit older.

[Nerissa]

Amazing lesson. I'm really impressed. I know these kids will never see blood the same way.

[Jamie]

This is an amazing idea/description! I had a teacher do something similar in early grade school and I still remember! Thanks for sharing this, I'm going to try it for my kids as well. You're a great teacher Laura!

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I have no idea if the books are great quality, mediocre, or terrible and have no ties to the site-just wanted to pass it along in case you/or any other posters are interested.

Thank you again for this great idea! I love coming to your blog!

[kooks]

which age group this activity aim to!?

[Rhymezone]

u hv an awesome blog...i am inspired!