# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM | Educational Video for Kids.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
11 Fascinating Facts About the Human Heart

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Educational Videos for Students (Cartoons on Bullying, Leadership & More)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Heart for kids: The anatomy of the heart. Heart chambers and valves (fun facts for children)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 FUN FACTS ABOUT HEARTS! HEART FACTS FOR KIDS! Love! Learning Colors! Funny! Pump! Blood! Puppet!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We see and hear about hearts everywhere. A long time ago, people even thought that their emotions came from their hearts, maybe because the heart beats faster when a person is scared or excited. Now we know that emotions come from the brain, and in this case, the brain tells the heart to speed up. So what's the heart up to, then? How does it keep busy? What does it look like? Let's find out.

The Heart Is a Muscle

Your heart is really a muscle. It's located a little to the left of the middle of your chest, and it's about the size of your fist. There are lots of muscles all over your body - in your arms, in your legs, in your back, even in your behind.

But the heart muscle is special because of what it does. The heart sends blood around your body. The blood provides your body with the oxygen and nutrients it needs. It also carries away waste.

Your heart is sort of like a pump, or two pumps in one. The right side of your heart receives blood from the body and pumps it to the lungs. The left side of the heart does the exact opposite: It receives blood from the lungs and pumps it out to the body.

How the Heart Beats

How does the heart beat? Before each beat, your heart fills with blood. Then its muscle contracts to squirt the blood along. When the heart contracts, it squeezes - try squeezing your hand into a fist. That's sort of like what your heart does so it can squirt out the blood. Your heart does this all day and all night, all the time. The heart is one hard worker!

Parts of the Heart

The heart is made up of four different blood-filled areas, and each of these areas is called a chamber. There are two chambers on each side of the heart. One chamber is on the top and one chamber is on the bottom. The two chambers on top are called the atria (say: AY-tree-uh). If you're talking only about one, call it an atrium. The atria are the chambers that fill with the blood returning to the heart from the body and lungs. The heart has a left atrium and a right atrium.

The two chambers on the bottom are called the ventricles (say: VEN-trih-kulz). The heart has a left ventricle and a right ventricle. Their job is to squirt out the blood to the body and lungs. Running down the middle of the heart is a thick wall of muscle called the septum (say: SEP-tum). The septum's job is to separate the left side and the right side of the heart.

The atria and ventricles work as a team - the atria fill with blood, then dump it into the ventricles. The ventricles then squeeze, pumping blood out of the heart. While the ventricles are squeezing, the atria refill and get ready for the next contraction. So when the blood gets pumped, how does it know which way to go?

Well, your blood relies on four special valves inside the heart. A valve lets something in and keeps it there by closing - think of walking through a door. The door shuts behind you and keeps you from going backward.

Two of the heart valves are the mitral (say: MY-trul) valve and the tricuspid (say: try-KUS-pid) valve. They let blood flow from the atria to the ventricles. The other two are called the aortic (say: ay-OR-tik) valve and pulmonary (say: PUL-muh-ner-ee) valve, and they're in charge of controlling the flow as the blood leaves the heart. These valves all work to keep the blood flowing forward. They open up to let the blood move ahead, then they close quickly to keep the blood from flowing backward.

How Blood Circulates

You probably guessed that the blood just doesn't slosh around your body once it leaves the heart. It moves through many tubes called arteries and veins, which together are called blood vessels. These blood vessels are attached to the heart. The blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart are called arteries. The ones that carry blood back to the heart are called veins.

The movement of the blood through the heart and around the body is called circulation (say: sur-kyoo-LAY-shun), and your heart is really good at it - it takes less than 60 seconds to pump blood to every cell in your body.

Your body needs this steady supply of blood to keep it working right. Blood delivers oxygen to all the body's cells. To stay alive, a person needs healthy, living cells. Without oxygen, these cells would die. If that oxygen-rich blood doesn't circulate as it should, a person could die.

The left side of your heart sends that oxygen-rich blood out to the body. The body takes the oxygen out of the blood and uses it in your body's cells. When the cells use the oxygen, they make carbon dioxide and other stuff that gets carried away by the blood. It's like the blood delivers lunch to the cells and then has to pick up the trash!

The returning blood enters the right side of the heart. The right ventricle pumps the blood to the lungs for a little freshening up. In the lungs, carbon dioxide is removed from the blood and sent out of the body when we exhale. What's next? An inhale, of course, and a fresh breath of oxygen that can enter the blood to start the process again. And remember, it all happens in about a minute!

Listen to the Lub-Dub

When you go for a checkup, your doctor uses a stethoscope to listen carefully to your heart. A healthy heart makes a lub-dub sound with each beat. This sound comes from the valves shutting on the blood inside the heart.

The first sound (the lub) happens when the mitral and tricuspid valves close. The next sound (the dub) happens when the aortic and pulmonary valves close after the blood has been squeezed out of the heart. Next time you go to the doctor, ask if you can listen to the lub-dub, too.

Pretty Cool - It's My Pulse!

Even though your heart is inside you, there is a cool way to know it's working from the outside. It's your pulse. You can find your pulse by lightly pressing on the skin anywhere there's a large artery running just beneath your skin. Two good places to find it are on the side of your neck and the inside of your wrist, just below the thumb.

You'll know that you've found your pulse when you can feel a small beat under your skin. Each beat is caused by the contraction (squeezing) of your heart. If you want to find out what your heart rate is, use a watch with a second hand and count how many beats you feel in 1 minute. When you are resting, you will probably feel between 70 and 100 beats per minute.

When you run around a lot, your body needs a lot more oxygen-filled blood. Your heart pumps faster to supply the oxygen-filled blood that your body needs. You may even feel your heart pounding in your chest. Try running in place or jumping rope for a few minutes and taking your pulse again - now how many beats do you count in 1 minute?

Keep Your Heart Happy

Most kids are born with a healthy heart and it's important to keep yours in good shape. Here are some things that you can do to help keep your heart happy:

Remember that your heart is a muscle. If you want it to be strong, you need to exercise it. How do you do it? By being active in a way that gets you huffing and puffing, like jumping rope, dancing, or playing basketball. Try to be active every day for at least 30 minutes! An hour would be even better for your heart!

Eat a variety of healthy foods and avoid foods high in unhealthy fats, such as saturated fats and trans fats (reading food labels can help you figure out if your favorite snacks contain these unhealthy ingredients).

Try to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

Avoid sugary soft drinks and fruit drinks.

Don't smoke. It can damage the heart and blood vessels.

Your heart deserves to be loved for all the work it does. It started pumping blood before you were born and will continue pumping throughout your whole life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We see and hear about hearts everywhere. A long time ago, people even thought that their emotions came from their hearts, maybe because the heart beats faster when a person is scared or excited. Now we know that emotions come from the brain, and in this case, the brain tells the heart to speed up.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Heart Facts for Kids | Science with Kids.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The heart is a very important part of the human body. Find out some very interesting facts about the heart that kids will enjoy. Help kids understand some ways to help keep their heart healthy..

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Visit this site for fast, fun Facts on the Heart for kids. Discover fascinating information with Facts on the Heart for kids. Facts on the Heart for kids, children and schools - ideal for homework help!.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Heart smart health education.

Get smart with Project Heart, a fun, heart healthy resource for K-6 teachers and students that includes elementary lesson plans, teacher worksheets and educational games.

About Project Heart

Project Heart is designed to support elementary school teachers and others who are dedicated to teaching students how to make heart-healthy life choices. Elementary health, science and physical education teachers may find the curriculum particularly helpful.

Project Heart lessons are aligned for the National Health Education Standards (NHES). These are written expectations for what students should know and be able to do in grades K-12 to promote personal, family and community health. Project Heart covers all eight standard levels of NHES.

Additionally, each Project Heart lesson plan and activity was created based on Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). These are the state standards for what students specifically should know and be able to do. Project Heart covers the Health Education and Physical Education chapters of the TEKS.

Lesson Plans

A complete "heart-smart" curriculum is included for grades K through 6. Each curriculum contains 3 lessons: anatomy, nutrition and exercise. Emphasis is placed on learning these concepts in a fun and interesting way. Each lesson plan includes goals, instructional objectives, background information, a materials list, lesson procedures/activities, guided practice, independent practice, extension activities, assessment and closure.

Instructional Plan

Each lesson included in Project Heart is intended to build upon the one that came before it, and each grade level builds upon the lessons and skills of the previous grade. Teachers may find the classroom activity masters helpful for constructing customized lesson plans. A complete list of classroom activity masters is available with each grade's curriculum.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Project Heart, a fun, heart healthy resource for K-6 teachers and students, is designed to support elementary school teachers and others who are dedicated to teaching students how to make heart-healthy life choices. Elementary health, science and physical education teachers may find the curriculum particularly helpful.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The heart is about the size of your fist, and you won't believe the things that this very important organ can do. Prepare to be amazed by these cool heart facts.

So, first let's take a look at how this little bit of dynamite that comes in a small package works.

The heart is like a big pump made of muscles, and it constantly pumps blood throughout our bodies every minute of every day. These movements are called 'involuntary' which means you don't actually have to think about making your heart beat; your brain does the work for you and passes on the message.

So everyone thinks that the heart is on the left side of your chest, well it's not. Whoever made that up has fooled people for years, maybe it was a trickster trying to trick us. It's actually right in the middle of your chest between your two lungs. It is protected by your ribs. At least we know it's in a safe spot!

The heart has four chambers, the left and right atrium and the left and right ventricles. Interestingly 'atrium' is the Latin word for entrance hall and 'ventricle' is the Latin word for little belly. So, there's a little belly inside our hearts...interesting.

There are also four valves in the heart, and these are there to make sure that the blood only goes one way, in or out. Imagine the chaos it would cause if the blood was going in and out all at the same time.

So how does the blood get around our bodies? Well when it leaves the heart it gets taken on a journey through arteries. Have you heard of the aorta and the pulmonary artery? Well these are super important for making sure our blood gets to the right place at the right time. It's like a well-timed train.

But what about when the blood needs to go back to the heart. Well here it is carried through veins. If you look at your wrists, you'll probably be able to see veins which look blue from the outside.

Then there's blood that comes from the lungs into the left atrium; this is transported along nicely through the pulmonary veins, while blood that comes from the body goes flowing in through the superior vena cava (this carries blood from your upper body) and inferior vena cava (this carries blood from your lower body).

You must have felt your own heart beating, well this actually works from electricity, yes really, electricity! Your heart contracts, or tightens up and this makes all the chambers smaller and pushes blood back into the blood vessels. So that's how it's done...interesting! When your heart relaxes again, the chambers get bigger and the blood comes back into your heart. Wow, sounds pretty complex.

Interesting and unusual facts about the heart

The heart weighs between 7 and 15 ounces (about 200 to 425 grams) which is about the same as a bottle of Heinz Ketchup! Pick up a bottle of ketchup and you'll be able to feel how much your heart actually weighs.

Now this is quite unbelievable. The average adult heart beats about 72 times a minute, 100,000 times a day and 3,600 times a year. During a person's life their heart could beat more than 3.5 billion, yes 3.5 billion, times.

This amazing bit of body machinery pumps about 100 gallons (380 liters) of blood through your body, every single hour, which is about 2,400 gallons (9000 liters) per day. Man it works hard. That's about the same as 1,600 glasses of water, per hour and 38,400 glasses of water per day. Wow. We certainly wouldn't be able to drink that much water. Now let's work that out over a lifetime...it pumps about 1 million barrels of blood during an average lifetime which would fill three super tankers. Getting the idea of how hard this little fellow works?

Let's look at it in another way. Turn on your kitchen faucet all the way for 45 years and that is the same amount of blood that is pumped through your heart in a lifetime. Okay, don't turn on the faucet; your parents won't be too pleased at all! What a waste of water too.

Want to know how fast the blood pumps through your aorta? It pumps at 1 mile (1.6km's) per hour. That is pretty fast.

You know when you hear the sound of your heartbeat; it's got a kind of 'lub dub' sound. Well that's from your four heart valves closing. What a cool thing to know.

Your heart does the most physical work out of any other muscle in the body. Hardly surprising when you see all the work it's got to do.

All of your blood vessels, which include arteries, veins and capillaries, are over 60,000 miles long (about 97,000km's). If we had to stretch them all out it would go round the world twice. No way. How they all fit in our body who knows.

This is interesting. During a heartbeat the heart creates pressure, okay cool. Now the amount of pressure it creates would be able to make your blood squirt a distance of about 30 feet (9 meters).

In 1967 Dr Christopher Barnard did the first ever successful heart transplant in Cape Town, South Africa. It was a wonder of medicine.

Can you believe there is actually a time and a day when most heart attacks occur? Well it's between 8 and 9am in the morning and Monday is the most popular day. Perhaps we aren't all that keen on Monday.

To keep your heart healthy you really need to get out there and get some exercise in...at least 30 minutes on most days of the week.

Why is the heart always associated with love? Well there are different theories, the Greeks believed the heart was the seat of the spirit, the Chinese associated it with the center for happiness and the Egyptians thought the emotions and intellect arose from the heart. Then Plato came along and believed that we reason through our brains but love came from our heart.

Early Egyptians believed that the heart, and other organs, moved around inside our bodies. Imagine that, we'd never be able to sit still.

Did you know that the heart can continue to beat outside of the body as long as it has got enough oxygen? Well this is because it has its very own electrical impulse. Freaky.

The heart pumps blood to almost all of the 75 trillion cells in our body. The only part of our body that doesn't get blood is the corneas in our eyes. 75 trillion cells, no way.

This is very interesting and very fast too. When your body is at rest it takes 6 seconds for the blood to go from your heart to your lungs and back again, 8 seconds for it to go to your brain and back and 16 seconds for it to go all the way down to your toes and back.

Imagine this. Your heart creates enough energy every single day to drive a truck for 20 miles (32km's). So if you're 10 you would have been able to drive a truck for 73,000 miles (about 118,000km's). Who knows where you'd be now, but you'd have been able to go to the moon and back.

If you own a cat, you're in luck. It can reduce your risk of having a heart attack by more than a third. Think you should ask your parents for a cat if you don't have one, you'll be super healthy.

Did you know that when you listen to music your heartbeat changes and it takes on the same beat as what you're listening to? So when you're listening to super-fast music your heart beats faster and slower when you're listening to calming music. Amazing huh.

This is grim! In 1929, German surgeon Werner Forssmann examined the inside of his own heart. He threaded a catheter into his arm vein and pushed it 20 inches (50cm's) into his heart. But some good did come out of this as he actually invented something called 'cardiac catheterization' - which doctors now use all the time.

Men and women's hearts beat differently. A women's heartbeat is faster than a man's at 78 beats per minute and a man's at 70 beats per minute.

Do you know what an electrocardiograph is? Well it measures the electric current in the heart and helps doctors to know what's happening in this amazing organ. It was invented in 1903.

If you want to feel how fast your heart is beating put your finger on the side of your wrist or throat. This is your pulse. Get the stopwatch out and see how many times it beats in a minute. As a kid it should beat about 75 to 100 times per minute. Go on, check it out now.

When you're running around, or if you're excited, have you noticed that your heart beats faster? Well that's because your heart needs to work even harder than normal to get more blood to your muscles so they're in tip-top shape. Gosh as if it doesn't work hard enough already.

Now we know the heart works hard, but this might shock you. Even when you're resting your heart is still working at an unbelievable pace...twice as hard as the leg muscles of someone that is sprinting. Amazing.

The aorta is almost as thick as a garden hose. On the flip side, your capillaries are so small that it would take ten of them to be as thick as a piece of hair.

This fist-sized piece of our body is a truly amazing little bit of machinery. Oh the places we can go with it...even to the moon and back!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Heart Facts For Kids The heart is about the size of your fist, and you won't believe the things that this very important organ can do. Prepare to be amazed by these cool heart facts. So, first let's take a look at how this little bit of dynamite that comes in a small package works.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Check out our range of interesting human body facts for kids and learn some fun trivia about how the human body works.

Human Heart Facts

Enjoy these fun heart facts for kids and learn some interesting
new facts and information about how the amazing human
heart works.

The heart is one of the most important organs in the human body, continuously pumping blood around our body through blood vessels.

Your heart is located in your chest and is well protected by your rib cage.

The study of the human heart and its various disorders is known as cardiology.

The heart is made up of four chambers, the left atrium, right atrium, left ventricle and right ventricle.

There are four valves in the human heart, they ensure that blood only goes one way, either in or out.

Blood that leaves the heart is carried through arteries. The main artery leaving the left ventricle is the aorta while the main artery leaving the right ventricle is the pulmonary artery.

Blood going towards the heart is carried through veins. Blood coming from the lungs to the left atrium is carried through the pulmonary veins while blood coming from the body to the right atrium is carried through the superior vena cava and inferior vena cava.

You might have felt your own heart beating, this is known as the cardiac cycle. When your heart contracts it makes the chambers smaller and pushes blood into the blood vessels. After your heart relaxes again the chambers get bigger and are filled with blood coming back into the heart.

Electricity going through your heart makes the muscle cells contract.

You might have watched television shows or movies where a patient in a hospital is attached to an electrocardiogram (ECG). You might recognize it as the machine with a line moving across a screen that occasionally spikes (or remains flat when a patient is dying). This machine can measure the electricity going through a patient's heart. A doctor can use the information to know when a patient is having heart rhythm problems or even a heart attack.

Heart attacks cause scar tissue to form amongst normal heart tissue, this can lead to further heart problems or even heart failure.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fun Heart Facts for Kids - Interesting Facts about the Human Heart

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Check out our range of interesting human body facts for kids and learn some fun trivia about how the human body works. Human Heart Facts Enjoy these fun heart facts for kids and learn some interesting new facts and information about how the amazing human heart works.