Pumps Your Blood

Ben Rimes

I found it! While unenthusiastically trying to explain the flow of blood through the body to my sixth graders I started humming that infectious song from the St. Joseph Aspirin’s commercial. With a bit of searching I found the commercials on the web site, but more importantly I also found an entire recording of the “Pumps Your Blood” song based on the original tune from Happy Days. That’s right; for those of you who are either too young , or don’t have have Nick at Nite, originally the song was performed on the show in order to help Potsie do exactly what I’m hoping it will help my students with – memorize the path that blood takes throughout the heart, lungs, and body. While not a true integration of technology within a lesson (unless of course I can find a way for my students to create their own songs), it’s important to note that technology is truly a wonderful tool for providing resources that educators just 10 years ago would have had to spend several hours if not days tracking down.

13 comments

  1. Ben,
    I always enjoy your updates. I’m sure our 6th grade teachers will appreciate this extra resource.
    Thanks, Ben!

  2. Thanks Angela! I’m glad that my discoveries are being put to good use outside of my classroom. If you have any discoveries yourself though, I’d love to here them as I always find that others have resources or ideas I use in my room. The forum is a great place (and you don’t even have to login if you don’t want to) to share your ideas 🙂

  3. Hey Ben

    I’m a 9th grade health and PE teacher in Va. Beach, VA and I’ve been looking for these songs for a while. I just wanted to tell you thanks… I did hear the original on the happy day’s reunion they had this past year on TV and went nuts.. I’m getting ready to teach the circulatory system and will start off my lesson with the song.. You are a Savvy Educator!!!

    Thanks a bunch!!!

  4. I’m glad it helped Yogi! You sound like I do when I first discovered the tune. I never had a chance to hear it on the show, but it was used in the St. Joseph Asprin commercial campaign recently and I just couldn’t get it out of my head so I had to go searching for it. I’m glad someone was as excited as me for this resource. You’re welcome and thanks for the compliments 🙂

  6. I have used this song for years in my classroom (along with a picture diagram). The kids find it infectous and they end up doing better on rote memory after they listen to it! Keep on using it!

  7. Is there a particular diagram that you use, and if so is it online? I found a couple of diagrams online that helped show the flow of blood, but I couldn’t find a nice diagram that showed both the flow (actually flowing with a moving picture) and had the respiratory and circulatory systems together. Everything I found was either separate diagrams or had no movement of blood (static). 🙁

  8. What I use comes from enchantedlearning.com it is just a simple diagram of the heart, but it has arrows pointing the flow. I have them color unoxyginated path blue and oxyginated path red. We assume, by the drawings labels, that it is headed to the body or lungs. It really is a decent drawing to use for handouts. I have (somewhere) a video clip of the flow happening. Give me some time to locate it and I will try to send it your way.

  9. Thanks Jennie, that would be a huge help. I’d love to take a look at what you use. When you find it, just paste the link into the comments and it should turn into a hyperlink. Either that or use the contact form and send it to me and I’ll get it posted. That’s assuming the video clip is online and not in actual video format.

  10. Ok, I haven’t been able to find it because their webpage apparently is blocked by our firewall. My collegue says our HS apparently has a disc with a short clip on it. I will try to locate it and send it to you.

  11. Sorry you can’t get to the site at school anymore 🙁 If you can find it at home or the public library you could send it to me that way, otherwise a CD would be great if you don’t mind sending it out.

  13. Oh, Habits of the Heart, that’s an awesome website! I actually did use that with my kids this year as we were studying the cardiovascular system 🙂 Some of my students enjoyed the actual surgery movies, while some were a bit to squeamish to watch.

    You’re right though, that moving diagram is tremendously helpful for observing the slow of blood.

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