Urinary System

This lesson falls under our science homeschool curriculum on Anatomy.

1. Internet Access – Pull up the following:

1. Picture of the urinary system

2. Video of the urinary system

1. Teacher: Ok. So last lesson we learned about the digestive system, which are all the parts in your body that help turn food into energy.

2. Teacher: Now, we're going to learn a quick lesson about all the parts in your body that help use and eliminate water from your body, which is called the urinary system. Can you say "urinary system"? [Have the Student repeat the word "urinary system" several times]

3. Teacher: Great, so are you ready to learn about the urinary system? [Get positive response from Student and begin lesson]

1. Teacher: OK. Now I bet you've been thirsty before. Well, when you feel thirsty, that's your body's way of telling you that you need to drink water, or anything else with water in it.

2. Teacher: In fact, did you know that most of our body is made up of water? So if you think about it, you can understand why water is so important to us. If we didn't have enough water, our blood would dry up and not be able to carry any air to our bodies and we would ultimately die. So now that you know why water is so important to us, let's look at how water is used in our body. Here's a picture of the urinary system. [Show the Student the picture of the urinary system]

3. Teacher: Now what you don't see in this picture is the mouth, esophagus, and stomach - all important parts of our body that take in water. But where the urinary system really starts is here [point to the kidneys], the kidneys. We actually have two kidneys, located on each side of our lower back. All of our blood in our body passes through these kidneys and as the blood passes through, the kidneys inspect the blood and take out all the water in the blood that we don't need. This job of removing extra water from our blood is going on constantly, even in your sleep.

4. Teacher: The kidneys not only get rid of excess water, but they also get rid of extra salt or even too many vitamins.

5. Teacher: As the kidneys are removing all the extra junk from your blood, this extra junk drips down through 2 tubes, called the ureter [point to the ureter], to a stretchy pouch called the bladder [point to the bladder]. Your bladder collects all the water and the stuff that you kidneys removed from your blood and when it is gets full, your body tells you to go to the bathroom and pee. In fact, the grown-up way to say pee is "urine", which is similar to the word "urinary" in urinary system. Anyway, your pee will be removed from your body through a small tube called the urethra [point to the urethra] and the process will continue all over again.

6. Teacher: Here are some interesting facts about your urinary system. Each kidney is about the size of your fist and checks out enough of your blood to fill up 440 gallons of milk each day! Also, the yellow color of your urine (or pee) is really all the excess salt and other vitamins and minerals that your body doesn't need.

7. Teacher: Now, it may sound funny at first, but if you did not have kidneys that worked in the right way, you would have a hard time peeing. This is a very serious problem because that pee is poison for your body and the kidneys cannot get rid of that poison.

8. Teacher: So we have to help our kidneys easily get rid of the unwanted things in our blood. How? By drinking plenty of water each day, especially when it's warm and you're exercising or playing around outside.

9. Teacher: Ok, now it's time for a short video, featuring that lady in the video that talked about the digestive system earlier in our lesson. She sounds a bit funny but I think it'll help you remember some of the things I taught you today. [Show the Student the video on the urinary system]

10. Teacher: OK - time for review. Go stand up and get in front of the class (consider inviting other members of the family also to set the stage). [Ask Student the following:

1. What are the important organs that help remove the extra water, salt, and vitamins from your body? Kidneys

2. What are the tubes called that carry the urine from the kidneys to the bladder? Ureter

3. What is the stretchy pouch that collects your urine called? Bladder

4. What's one way to make it easier for our kidneys to do their job? Drink plenty of water

Next Week's Lesson: Nervous System >>