The space learning has continued and developed into thinking and learning about what an astronaut needs to stay healthy in space. This has developed into thinking about what human bodies need. In order to do that we need to understand a little about what the body does and how it works.

We have been learning about food that keeps us healthy and growing.

“Water and milk are good to drink” – Zach.

[Coke a cola]”rots your teeth you know!” – Abi

We know that we need to get exercise and fresh air to be healthy so we have been visiting local parks and exercising on the equipment as part of our space walks.

However we have been exploring this idea in even greater detail.We have been learning about how when we exercise our hearts work hard to pump lots of blood to our muscles.

“My heart is beating fast!” – Caelan after running.

“My heart’s not beating so fast anymore” – Caelan after walking for a while.

“When you run, my heart beats faster cos I’m breathing fast!” – Noah

We found out that we get puffed out when we run about because our lungs are working hard to get enough oxygen.

We explored the idea of the heart beating further with Sharon back at the nursery. She made a heart out of a bottle and used a big long tube to be the veins. She pumped red water through the tubes to show how blood is pumped by the heart, through the veins.

The tubes were really long – but nowhere near as long as all our veins would be (an adult’s blood vessels laid out end to end would wrap around the world  nearly 2 1/2 times!!!!)

We were really fascinated by the blood moving through the veins.

We took turns to hold and pump the bottle heart to make the blood move.

We had to pump and pump for a long time to get the blood all the way through the vein, but we got there!

“It’s coming out!” – Aaron

Sharon helped us find veins on our arms and we noticed they look purple – not red and we wondered why. Sharon added a purple vein.

So we found out that blood that has come from our lungs is bright red because it is full of oxygen and is taking it to our muscles. Blood that has little oxygen and is heading back to the lungs is darker red and looks purple through our skin. This is called oxygenation.

We will be learning more about our human body over the next few weeks so keep asking your child to share their learning!

You can find to find out more about blood vessels  or you can have a look at Cbeebies Nina and the Neurons for other science.

Follow our twitter too to keep up to date with our learning.