Grade 4 Circulatory System Lesson Plan: How Blood Moves

Grade Band: Upper Elementary (4–5)
Subject Area: Science

This free lesson helps students understand the circulatory system by connecting observation, movement, and modeling. Students learn why the heart beats faster during activity and how blood delivers oxygen throughout the body.

Overview

Students explore circulation as a body-wide transport system. They observe their own heartbeat, investigate how activity affects pulse, identify heart structures, and build a model that explains how blood travels from the lungs to the body and back again. Each session adds a new piece of understanding that students apply in a final visual explanation.

Learning Goals

Students will identify major parts of the circulatory system and explain their purpose. They will describe the pathway blood follows, interpret pulse rate changes, and represent circulation in a labeled model.

Materials

Heart diagram handouts, colored pencils, stopwatch or timer, notebooks or recording sheets, chart paper or poster paper, markers, tape or floor markers, and space for brief physical activity.

Preparation

Print diagrams and prepare a simple pulse recording chart. Clear an open space in the classroom for short movement activities. Post vocabulary words (heart, artery, vein, capillary, oxygen, blood) where students can refer to them during the week.

Teaching Procedure

Session 1

1. Begin by asking students why their body needs food and air. Guide discussion until students suggest energy and oxygen. Explain that something inside the body must carry these materials everywhere. Introduce the circulatory system as the transport system.
2. Students place a hand on their chest and quietly feel for a heartbeat. The teacher models how to notice rhythm rather than counting. Students describe what they feel using words such as steady, fast, or strong.
3. Teacher sketches a simple outline of the body on the board and draws a heart in the chest. Students predict where blood might travel. Record their ideas without correcting yet.
4. Students write a short entry: “What I think blood does in my body.” This writing will be revisited at the end of the lesson.

Session 2

1. Distribute heart diagrams. The teacher demonstrates how to locate the four chambers and explains that the heart is a pump with rooms that move blood in a specific direction.
2. Students label and color the chambers while the teacher circulates and asks guiding questions such as “Why would blood need to come back to the heart?”
3. The class traces blood flow together using arrows on the board. Students repeat the pathway aloud: lungs to heart, heart to body, body back to heart.
4. Students pair up and explain the pathway to a partner while pointing to their diagram.

Session 3

1. Teacher models how to find a wrist pulse and count beats for 15 seconds. Students practice once together and once independently.
2. Students record resting pulse rate in a table. The class compares numbers and notices variation between students.
3. Students complete one minute of brisk movement such as jumping in place. Immediately afterward they measure pulse again and record the result.
4. Teacher leads discussion: students conclude the heart beats faster because muscles need more oxygen and nutrients during activity.

Session 4

1. The classroom floor becomes a body map. The teacher marks stations labeled lungs, heart, arteries, capillaries, and veins.
2. Students act as red blood cells traveling through the system. At the lungs they pick up “oxygen” cards, at body cells they deliver them, and then return to the heart.
3. After the simulation, students draw the journey of one drop of blood in their notebooks and label each step.
4. The class revisits the predictions from Session 1 and corrects or confirms ideas.

Session 5

1. Students create a circulatory system model on poster paper. The teacher requires arrows, labels, and a written explanation of what happens at the lungs and body cells.
2. Students present their model to small groups. Listeners must ask one question about blood flow.
3. Students reread their Session 1 writing and add a second paragraph explaining what they now know.
4. The teacher closes by connecting pulse data to the model, emphasizing that circulation is a continuous loop.

Assessment

Assess understanding through the labeled heart diagram, pulse data recording, notebook drawing of blood movement, and the final model explanation. Growth is also shown by the change between students’ initial and final written explanations.

Differentiation

Provide partially labeled diagrams or larger print for students who need support. Allow oral explanation instead of extended writing when appropriate. Offer additional research questions about exercise or heart health for advanced learners.

Extension Ideas

Students graph class pulse data, compare resting heart rates over several days, or investigate how the lungs and circulatory system work together during exercise.