Effect of exercise on our heartbeat
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can identify changes in my heartbeat when I exercise.
Key learning points
- Move: moving quickly or slowly causes our heart to beat faster or slower.
- Think: our heart pumps blood around the body to provide our muscles with energy.
- Think: our heartbeat gets faster when we exercise and slows down again when we rest.
- Feel: consistently trying hard shows courage.
- Connect: listening carefully shows a commitment to playing by the rules, enabling the activities to flow successfully
Keywords
Heartbeat - the regular movement or sound that our heart makes as it sends blood around our body
Exercise - being physically active while playing a game or performing an activity
Energy - the ability to do work or move
Common misconception
Some pupils may think that a fast heartbeat makes the body move faster rather than it being a response to exercise i.e. the heart acts like an engine and a fast heartbeat makes you run fast.
Your heartbeat usually changes because of an action or a feeling. When you do exercise, you need it to pump more blood to your muscles for energy so it changes its speed because of your exercising actions.
Teacher tip
It is helpful to draw pupils' attention to their heartbeat at various points throughout the lesson so they can link the ideas with their own experience. You may also return to these ideas at various times throughout the school day.
Equipment
40+ cones, 20+ beanbags, 1 dice
Content guidance
Risk assessment required - physical activity
Supervision
Adult supervision required
Licence
Prior knowledge starter quiz
4 Questions
Q1.Why is exercise important?
Q2.Which of these words describes an action with your arms, legs or other body part?
Q3.How often should we move our body to keep it healthy?
Q4.Which body parts stay healthy when we exercise regularly?
Assessment exit quiz
4 Questions
Q1.What happens to our heartbeat when we exercise?
Q2.What can we do to slow down our heartbeat?
Q3.What quality are you demonstrating when exercises are hard and you keep trying?
Q4.Which of these body parts uses energy when we are exercising?
To help you plan your 1 physical education lesson on: Effect of exercise on our heartbeat, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 1 physical education lesson on: Effect of exercise on our heartbeat, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom.
Explore more key stage 1 physical education lessons from the Health and wellbeing: the effects of exercise unit, dive into the full primary physical education curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.