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Subject🔢 Math📖 Reading & writing

Lesson 17 of 144 · Monday · 🩺 The Human Body

Find the central idea: the heart

I can find the central idea and the details that prove it

ELA.4.R.2.2

Start here

Say this

Make a fist. That's about the size of your heart, and it has been working since before you were born. Today's article has lots of amazing heart facts, but all of them point to one big idea. Your job is to be a detective and find it.

Word work

Heart words from the article

  • chamber (one of the heart's four rooms)
  • valve (a flap that lets blood go one way)
  • oxygen (the gas your body needs from air)
  • blood vessel (a tube that carries blood)
  • pulse (the beat you feel in your wrist)
  • stethoscope (a tool to hear your heart)
  • central idea (what a text is mostly about)
  • detail (a fact that supports the main idea)

Teach it

  1. 1Explain: the central idea is what the whole passage is mostly about. Details are facts that support it.
  2. 2Read the passage aloud together. Kid underlines every fact about what the heart does.
  3. 3Ask: what do all these facts have in common? Kid says the central idea in one sentence.
  4. 4Kid picks the two strongest details and explains how each one supports the central idea.

Words to know

  • central idea (what a text is mostly about)
  • detail (a fact that supports the central idea)
  • chamber (one of the four rooms inside the heart)
  • valve (a flap that lets blood flow only one way)
  • oxygen (the gas your body needs from the air)

Read

NonfictionThey read it alone, then read the best part aloud

The Hardest-Working Muscle in Your Body

Make a fist. That’s about how big your heart is. It sits in your chest, a little to the left of the middle, tucked between your two lungs. It is smaller than a football, but it does more work than any other muscle you have, and it never takes a day off.

Your heart is a pump. Each time it squeezes, it pushes blood out through tubes called blood vessels. Blood carries oxygen, the gas your body needs from the air, to every part of you: your brain, your toes, your fingertips. Then the blood comes back to the heart for another trip. A grown-up’s heart beats about 100,000 times a day. By the time you finish reading this page, yours will have beaten a couple of hundred times.

Inside, the heart is split into four rooms called chambers. The two top chambers collect blood as it comes in. The two bottom chambers are the strong pumpers. The right side sends blood to the lungs to pick up fresh oxygen. The left side, which is thicker and stronger, sends that oxygen-rich blood out to the whole body, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.

Between the chambers are valves. A valve is a flap that works like a one-way door. It swings open to let blood through, then snaps shut so the blood can’t slide backward. When a doctor presses a stethoscope to your chest, the “lub-dub” sound she hears is your valves closing.

Your heart also knows when you need more. When you sprint across a playground, your muscles burn through oxygen fast. Your heart speeds up to rush more blood to them. When you sleep, it slows down and takes it easy, but it never stops.

The tubes your heart pumps through are amazing, too. If you could lay all of a grown-up’s blood vessels end to end, they would stretch more than twice around the Earth.

So the next time you feel your pulse thumping in your wrist, thank your heart. It has been working for you since before you were born, one beat at a time.

Talk about it

  1. 1

    How many chambers does the heart have? What do the two bottom chambers do?

    Show answer

    Four. The two bottom chambers are the strong pumpers that push blood out, to the lungs (right side) and to the whole body (left side).

  2. 2

    Why do you think the left side of the heart is thicker and stronger than the right side?

    Show answer

    It has a bigger job: it pushes blood all the way out to the whole body, while the right side only sends blood next door to the lungs.

  3. 3

    What does “valve” mean in paragraph 4? Which words help you figure it out?

    Show answer

    A flap that lets blood go only one way. Clues: “works like a one-way door” and “snaps shut so the blood can't slide backward.”

  4. 4

    Why does the author say the heart “never takes a day off”? What does that tell you about the heart?

    Show answer

    It beats every minute of every day, even while you sleep. The heart is always working and never gets to rest completely.

  5. 5

    What is the central idea of the whole article? Name two details that prove it.

    Show answer

    The heart is a hardworking pump that moves blood and oxygen to the whole body, all day, every day. Details: it beats about 100,000 times a day; it speeds up when you run; it never stops.

  6. 6

    The article ends by telling you to thank your heart. Is that a good ending? Why or why not?

    Show answer

    Any reasoned answer. A good one: yes, because it sums up the central idea (the heart never stops working for you) and makes the reader feel something.

Grammar: Complete sentences and fragments: a sentence needs a subject (who or what) and a verb (what it does)

  1. 1

    Sentence or fragment? “Pumps blood all day and all night.”

    Show answer

    Fragment: no subject. Fix: My heart pumps blood all day and all night.

  2. 2

    Sentence or fragment? “The valves snap shut.”

    Show answer

    Sentence: subject “the valves,” verb “snap.”

  3. 3

    Sentence or fragment? “When you sprint across the playground.”

    Show answer

    Fragment: it isn't a complete thought. Fix: When you sprint across the playground, your heart speeds up.

  4. 4

    Fix this fragment: “Four rooms called chambers.”

    Show answer

    Any complete sentence, like: The heart has four rooms called chambers.

Writing: A Tour of Your Heart and Lungs

Informative report · today: Plan it

Pick a younger reader (a cousin, a sibling, a neighbor). List 5 facts from this week about the heart and lungs. Circle 3 to use. Plan: an opening question, one paragraph for the heart, one for the lungs, and a closing tip.

Write the central idea in one sentence. Then write two details that support it, in your own words.

Spelling: Suffixes -ful (full of), -less (without) and -ness (being)

5 min
  • careful
  • helpful
  • powerful
  • thankful
  • painless
  • breathless
  • restless
  • fearless
  • fitness
  • weakness
  • illness
  • kindness
  • different
  • through

Read the list together and find the pattern (Suffixes -ful (full of), -less (without) and -ness (being)). Circle it in every word.

Exit ticket

  1. In one sentence: what is the difference between a central idea and a detail?

    Show answer

    The central idea is what the whole text is mostly about; a detail is one fact that supports it.

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