Background information

Notes on child development

Play is crucial to the development of children’s gross and fine motor skills. Through play, children practice and perfect control and coordination of large body movements, as well as small movements of hands and fingers. Gross motor skills involve control of the arms, legs, head, and trunk. Fine motor skills involve the careful control of small muscles in the hands, feet, fingers, and toes. Controlling the muscles of the tongue and lips in order to speak or sing is also a fine motor skill. Find out more here.

Everyday moments can be fun learning opportunities for children. Pretending, creating and helping allows children to discover new things. Play helps children learn about themselves and where they fit in the world. Evidence shows that play can support learning across physical, social, emotional and intellectual areas of development. Find out more here.

Educator notes

Some children might need some very involved direct learning to be able to find their pulse.

Activity outline

Step 1.

Bring your children together on the floor. Ask children if they know where their heart is? Can they put their hand on their heart?

Step 2.

Explain that the heart is very important. It pumps blood all around our bodies. We need our hearts working happy and healthy in order to survive. Without blood in our brain, our fingers, our toes, and every other part, they would stop working.

Step 3.

Can any children feel their heartbeat right now? You might be able to if you focus, but it’s probably very faint.

Step 4.

Get your children to stand up and bounce like a kangaroo for 30 seconds to get their hearts really racing.

Step 5.

When children stop bouncing, show them how to use their pointer finger and middle finger together to find their pulse.

First, put your fingers over your throat in the middle of your neck just below your chin. Then move them to the left. You should feel a hollow just beneath your jaw and to the left of your oesophagus where the pulse beats strongly. This is your carotid artery. It supplies blood to your brain and head.

You should be able to feel it really pumping!

The other easy place to feel your pulse is at your radial artery.

Step 6.

Lead children in some mindfulness belly breathing. Breathe in whilst counting to five, feeling your belly inflate with the air. Breathe out whilst counting to five, feeling your belly deflate. Do this twice more.

This is a great method for calming down when children are feeling too excited or overwhelmed. See here for more breathing tips.

Step 7.

Ask your children to find their carotid artery again. How does it feel now?

Encourage children to use vocabulary such as slow, fast, strong, or weak.

Step 8.

Explain that our bodies need lots of blood when they’re doing things like playing chasey, but when we’re just sitting on the couch, we don’t need so much blood in our legs. That’s why our hearts sometimes beat fast, and sometimes slower.

You might like to have children jump around a second time to see the difference again.

Step 9.

Have everyone sit in a circle.

Show children how to tap their hands on the floor in front of them with the rhythm of their pulse. There should be two beats in a “ba-bum” pattern, the first softer, the second stronger. Encourage children to match your rhythm.

Step 10.

Ask the children to imagine they are now playing chasey at recess. Increase the pace and force of the rhythm.

Step 11.

Now ask the children to imagine they are going to sleep. Slow the pace right down, and soften the rhythm.

Step 12.

Then ask the children to imagine they have woken up suddenly after a nightmare, and make the rhythm fast and forceful!

Step 13.

Play with the rhythm, making it fast and slow. Always give cues to the children about what is happening to alter the rate of the heartbeat, so that they make connections between different activities and bodily states, and the response of their heart. You might even ask children for suggestions of things that make their pulse increase or decrease.

Evaluation

Complete analysis of learning, listing evidence about:

Belonging	Finding something of interest
Communication	Expressing an idea or feeling
Exploration	Engaging with challenge and persisting when difficulty arises
Wellbeing	Being involved

Feel your Heartbeat Rhythm - Physical Movement Game

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