Heart-to-Heart

Supplies††

• Plastic funnels, 2 per stethoscope ††
• Plastic tubing that fits the end of the funnels, 1 yard per stethoscope ††
• Design Card—Heart, 1 per child

Class Time Directions

Today at Camp Kilimanjaro, we’re talking about our hearts. We each have a heart inside us that beats and keeps us going physically. Let’s make a stethoscope to hear our hearts.

Depending on how many kids and supplies you have, make one or a number of stethoscopes. You can divide kids into small groups or pairs to have each group/pair make one, or just make one in front of the class. Each stethoscope is made by using two funnels and 1 yard of plastic tubing. Push a funnel into each end of the length of plastic tubing, pushing hard to make sure it’s in tight.

After the stethoscope is made, let the kids listen to their heart beat by putting one funnel against their heart and one funnel against their ear. Have them describe what they hear.

Remember how we talked about sound yesterday? Well, a stethoscope is an instrument that captures sound and sends it down the tube directly to your ear. Then those little hairs in your ears move and send the message to your brain! The message it sends this time is your heartbeat, which sort of sounds like lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. It’s amazing to think that your heart beats 100,000 times a day and 35 million times in a lifetime! That’s quite a workout!

What causes the heart to make these sounds? It’s related to the flow of blood through the heart. The heart is divided into two major parts. The upper part is called the atria and the lower part the ventricles. After blood flows from the atria into the ventricles, small “doors” called valves between the atria and ventricles shut to keep the blood in the heart. This is the “lub” sound. As blood flows from the ventricles to the rest of the body, different valves shut and prevent the blood from flowing back into the heart. This is the “dub” sound. Sometimes the valves don’t shut properly, and the flow of blood through the heart sounds differently. This is called a heart murmur.

The heart is a very powerful pump and pushes the blood out into your body with a lot of force. On average the heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood a day! The force that the heart pump generates can be felt in your pulse. A pulse is a pressure wave generated by the heart as it pushes blood out that you can feel in blood vessels near the surface of your skin. The best places to find a pulse is your neck and the palm side of your wrist. Which pulse is stronger? The pulse in your neck is stronger because it is closer to your heart. The pressure wave decreases in strength as it gets further from the heart resulting in a weaker pulse in your wrist. You checked/will check your pulse during your High Adventure Lesson Time, remember?

Sometimes our hearts are healthy and working just right. Sometimes people have problems with their hearts that don’t beat quite right.

Your physical heart may work just right, but everyone has a spiritual heart problem. Do you know what problem we all have? Take responses. Everyone is born with a problem called sin (disobedience to God’s commands). Sin separates us from God. But today we’re learning how to fix the spiritual heart problem. Does anyone know what we need to do to have a heart that is right with the Lord? Take responses. We need to trust in the Lord with all our heart. What does that mean? Take responses and remind them that we initially trust in the Lord by becoming His children (through repenting of sin and believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf ) and then learn to trust in Him daily as we experience various life situations. You may want to share a personal example of how you learned to trust in the Lord. Pass out the Design Card—Heart, one for each child..