18 Dec My Body: The Respiratory System

Our most recent Five in a Row book has been The Rag Coat, by Lauren Mills.  In this story, the main character, Minna’s father works in the coal mines.  He becomes sick and eventually dies from what is presumably Black Lung Disease.  This was an ideal opening for a discussion on lungs and the respiratory system.

We all Need to Breathe

We began by learning what is normal.  I pointed out to Clark and Luci that we always have to breathe.  Of course, Clark had to challenge this statement (I knew he would), so he experimented by trying not to breathe.  This didn’t last long, needless to say!  When he was forced to take a big breath of air, I pointed out to him how his chest expanded, and we learned that our lungs are located in our chest.  We took turns taking deep breaths a feeling our chest wall and ribs expand.  Lungs must be pretty strong to be able to move our bones!  We learned that when we take a deep breath, our lungs fill with air that contains oxygen and that we have to have oxygen to stay alive.

Color in a Pair of Lungs

We looked at pictures of healthy lungs and then we colored in a pair of lungs to add to our body on the back of our bedroom doors.

Check out this amazing pair of lungs from Learn Create Love!  They can also be found in the book, My Body, which has most life-sized body parts to cut out.  Here’s a piece of advice:  print them on colored paper.  They are pretty detailed and it literally took these kids 2 days to color them!  Clark especially was up jumping around before a single bronchus was colored in!

We then talked about some problems that can develop with lungs.  We thought Minna’s father probably had Black Lung Disease (or Pneumoconiosis – Clark and Luci didn’t quite manage to pronounce this).  This is a disease the results from inhaling coal dust.  Over a period of years, the coal dust settles deep into the lung, causing it to harden and scar.  We thought Minna’s father probably had a bad cough all the time, trying to get that coal dust out of his lungs.  He probably had to stop working because he was very short of breath all the time.  We learned that breathing can be very difficult when our lungs are damaged.

We ended our discussion on lungs by learning ways to keep them healthy.  By running and playing, we exercise our lungs, making the strong and healthy.  We talked about the importance of not breathing in dangerous chemicals.  Of course, I took the opportunity to enforce the importance of avoiding artificial fragrances.  These are toxic and dangerous.  We love to use our essential oil diffuser to inhale healthy scents that can actually benefit us by boosting our immunity.

Don’t miss our other posts from the My Body series!

Be sure to follow along our study of Five in a Row: The Rag Coat for some awesome ideas!