EdPlace's Key Stage 1 Home Learning Science Lesson: Exercise
There are lots of ways you can keep up with your learning over summer, particularly if you are a keen scientist! Science can take place anywhere and everywhere – you just need a few resources and you are ready to go. Try this activity to find out more about how your body works, whilst having fun at the same time.
Activity:
In order to take part in the activity, you will need the following resources:
1. Pencil/pen (something to write with)
2. Timer (you could use a mobile phone or a stopwatch if you have one)
3. Paper to write down your results
Optional: clipboard, exercise equipment.
Find out the effect that exercise has on your heart by timing yourself completing an activity, finding your pulse and counting how many beats per minute.
Time yourself for one minute doing star jumps, running on the spot, burpees or any form of exercise that gets you moving. Make sure you press ‘start’ on your timer when you are ready and ‘stop’ when you have finished. When you have completed your exercise, find your pulse. You will need to do this as soon as you have finished your exercise- don’t wait for too long!
You can find your pulse by pressing on your wrist; count how many beats there are in a minute, then write down how many on your piece of paper. What do you notice? How do you feel after doing exercise?
Now try timing yourself for one minute sitting down, or even lying down! Remember to press ‘start’ and ‘stop’ again on your timer, so the timing stays the same and it is a fair test. When the timer has finished, find your pulse again and write down how many beats you can count in one minute. What do you notice now? Do you feel any different from when you were doing exercise?
Have a go at another exercise, but this time try and predict what you think might happen. What will happen to your pulse? Will it be the same or different as when you were doing your first exercise? Try out some different activities – don’t forget to write down your beats per minute after every one!
Conclusion
When you have finished your activities, think about what you noticed. Look at your results – are there any patterns? Were your predictions correct? Think about the objective for this activity – how do you know that exercise makes the heart work harder?
After you have finished this activity, you may want to write up your results in a bar chart or a table. You could even design your own activities for someone else to try out- can you make their pulse increase by exercising?
EdPlace Activities to explore online
Want more? Then head to edplace.com and check out…
Now, you’ve had some practice, why not assign your child the following five activities in this order to test their understanding.
All activities are created by teachers and automatically marked. Plus, with an EdPlace subscription, we can automatically progress your child at a level tailored to their needs. Sending you progress reports along the way so you can track and measure progress, together - brilliant!
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