Valentine’s Day Science and STEM Activities for Kids with the Circulatory System

Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to explore all things heart-related, and why not do it with science and STEM? This February 14th, try celebrating the day of love by loving on some of our favorite heart-themed experiments and activities?

First, Learn About the Circulatory System

The circulatory system is made up of the heart, blood vessels, and blood. How does it work? Watch some videos about the circulatory system and then learn about the different parts of the heart with a game!

Videos and websites about the circulatory system and heart for kids:

• The Circulatory System for Kids from Learn Bright
• Exploring the Heart from AboutKidsHealth
• All About the Heart from Operation Ouch
• Explore various labeled diagrams in 2D and 3D from Imaios

After exploring the heart, try this game from Seterra labeling the main parts of the heart! After playing a few times, your kids will at least become familiar with words like atrium and ventricle. What a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by nerding out about the heart? ❤️

Next, Listen To Your Heart or Find Your Pulse

Kids should be able to find their radial (place index and middle fingers on the wrist) or carotid pulse (on the neck), but they can also use a phone app (usually a finger placed over the camera), a fitness tracker, a pulse oximeter, or ….they can make their own stethoscope! A lot of Valentine’s Day Science and STEM activities include candy, but I love that this set of activities focuses more on heart-healthy choices! Kids can count their heartbeat for 15 or 30 seconds, and then multiply by 4 or 2 to get their heart rate in BPM.

A super fun and easy Valentine’s Day STEM activity is a DIY stethoscope! With simple materials like cardboard tubes, straws, funnels, and plastic tubing, kids can assemble a basic stethoscope to listen to their heartbeat and those of family members. Encourage them to experiment with different tube lengths and materials to see which works best for sound transmission. This hands-on activity encourages problem-solving and introduces basic principles of acoustics.

If you are doing this in the classroom you can also have students just try to amplify sound from earbuds or a small speaker instead of placing the DIY stethoscopes on their classmates’ bodies. The stethoscopes above were made with various sized funnels, tape, tubes, a wide straw, and a balloon (on the yellow funnel). Kids can test out various combinations of funnels, tubes, and diaphrams (balloons, latex free) to see which work the best!

Then, Guess Which Activities Raise Heart Rate the Most

Have your kids brainstorm – which activities might make your heart beat reallllllllllllllllllly slowly? Which might speed it up? For younger kids, just ask if the heartbeat would fall into the “fast” or “slow” category:

• dancing
• floating on a pool float
• jumping rope
• climbing a rock wall
• sitting
• sleeping
• typing
• jumping jacks
• running
• walking
• What about things like watching TV? What if it’s the news versus a horror movie? Would heart rate be different?

After you get kids thinking about heart rate, test it out! Try several different activities, making sure the heart comes back to rest in between and see which activities increase heart rate the most, which increase it similarly, and which would bring it back down close to resting. This is a great way to not only infuse science into Valentine’s Day, but also get a create cardio workout! You can have your kids do things like jumping jacks for 30 seconds multiple times, check their pulse, and take an average.

Try these Circulatory Systems Science and STEM Activities Out with Your Students on Valentine’s Day

If you’re looking for the perfect Valentine’s Day science-based celebration, I created a download with everything you need – background science, lesson plans, and student worksheets to explore the circulatory system in a hands-on way. What’s included:

• 3 background pages about the circulatory system, the heart, and heart rate monitors
• recording pages for students to document their observations, plans, and results
• editable options
• 2 science experiments and 2 STEM challenges

>> Get the Valentine’s Day Science and STEM download here