Printable ScholarCirculatory System Diagram
Free printable circulatory system (cardiovascular system) diagram — a labeled illustration of the heart, arteries (red), veins (blue), and major blood vessels with flow direction arrows. Download a high-resolution PDF or PNG for Letter paper.
Part of the Heart and Circulation teaching pack for grades 4 to 6: 26 lesson slides and 11 printables with answer keys. The diagrams are free.
Teaching ideas for Heart and Circulation
Pick the ideas that suit your class, then follow the plan or use the sheets in any order.
- Find your pulse. Students rest two fingers on the inside of the wrist and feel the beat. Try again after jogging in place and talk about why it is faster.
- Squeeze a ball. Students squeeze a tennis ball over and over, like a heartbeat, until the hand gets tired. The heart does this work all day and all night.
- Walk the path. Mark the four chambers of the heart, the lungs and the body on the floor with tape or chalk. Students walk the path of the blood and name each part.
A plan for the week
| Day 1 | Open with one of the ideas above. Teach the lesson with the slides while students fill in the guided notes. Then students label the blank diagram. | Lesson slides (PowerPoint) (in the pack) Heart and Circulation Guided Notes (in the pack) Heart Diagram Blank Heart |
| Day 2 | Teach the circulatory system from the labeled diagram. Students label the blank one. | Circulatory System Diagram Blank Circulatory System |
| Day 3 | On “Read the Heart Diagram”, students trace the blood through the heart and work out what each lettered place must do. Then they read the circulatory system picture the same way. | Read the Heart Diagram (in the pack) Read the Circulatory Diagram (in the pack) |
| Day 4 | Read “Your Heart and Your Blood” and answer the questions. Then put the steps of “The Path of Blood Through the Heart” in order. | Your Heart and Your Blood (in the pack) The Path of Blood Through the Heart (in the pack) |
| Day 5 | Review with the crossword, then give the quiz. | Heart and Circulation Crossword (in the pack) Heart and Circulation Quiz (in the pack) |
The sheets marked “in the pack” are in the Heart and Circulation teaching pack below.
NGSS standards
- Supports 4-LS1-1: Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
- Supports MS-LS1-3: Use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells.
Heart and Circulation teaching pack
Teaching the heart and the circulatory system? Here is a ready-to-teach lesson. 26 slides and 11 printables that cover the whole topic, from the guided notes to the quiz. Present the slides while students fill in the guided notes, then use the worksheets, crossword and quiz, with every answer key.
Free on this page: 4 of the 11 printables, marked Download below. The whole pack is $7: 22 pages in one print-ready file, the 26 lesson slides, the practice sheets, the crossword, the quiz and every answer key.
OnlineThe pack also comes as an online lesson for Google Classroom: every part on screen for students, plus a self-grading Google Forms quiz.
One-time purchase. Instant download. Secure checkout by Stripe. Want to see a whole pack first? The Skeletal System pack is free.See all 31 packs in the bundle
- The Microscope
- Photosynthesis
- Parts of a Plant and Flower
- Life Cycle of a Plant
- Life Cycles of a Butterfly and a Frog
- Food Chains and Food Webs
- The Water Cycle
- Human Body Organs
- Skeletal System
- Muscular System
- Digestive System
- Respiratory System
- Heart and Circulation (this pack)
- Nervous System and Brain
- Eye and Ear
- Parts of a Tooth
- Inside the Earth and Volcanoes
- Rocks and the Rock Cycle
- Layers of the Atmosphere
- Types of Clouds
- Weathering, Erosion and Deposition
- Types of Landforms
- The Solar System
- The Seasons
- Moon Phases and Eclipses
- States of Matter
- Electric Circuits
- Forms of Energy
- Scientific Method
- Simple Machines
- Magnets and Magnetic Fields
Teach Heart and Circulation with 26 ready-made slides
Open the PowerPoint and teach: an opening question, the parts one at a time on the diagram, quick checks and an exit question. Students fill in the guided notes sheet as you go.
Every slide comes with teacher notes: what to say, what to ask, and sample answers.
The slides (PowerPoint and a PDF copy) and the guided notes sheet come with the pack.
What is in the pack, in teaching order
In the pack
1. TeachLesson Slides26 slides to present, with your notes for each one.In the $7 pack
In the pack
1. TeachHeart and Circulation Guided NotesStudents fill in the blanks as you present. With answer key.In the $7 pack
Free
Free
Free
Free
In the pack
3. ReasonRead the Heart DiagramRead the heart picture: trace the blood from A to the lungs, work out why the blood changes color, and why one wall is thicker than another.In the $7 pack
In the pack
3. ReasonRead the Circulatory DiagramRead the circulatory system picture: draw which way blood flows, and work out why blood is red or blue and where each vessel is going.In the $7 pack
In the pack
4. ReadYour Heart and Your BloodA one-page text on how the heart pumps blood around the body, with eight questions.In the $7 pack
In the pack
5. OrderThe Path of Blood Through the HeartPut seven steps in order to trace blood through the heart and lungs, then answer three questions.In the $7 pack
In the pack
6. ReviewHeart and Circulation CrosswordFourteen heart and blood vessel words with clues and a word bank.In the $7 pack
In the pack
7. CheckHeart and Circulation QuizLabel five parts, six multiple choice and two written answers. Scored out of 13.In the $7 pack
Heart and Circulation worksheets, crossword and quiz
The Heart and Circulation teaching pack is 26 lesson slides (PowerPoint and PDF) and 11 printables with answer keys for grades 4 to 6, in the order you would teach them: the guided notes for the lesson slides, 4 diagram sheets, then “Read the Heart Diagram” (a worksheet), “Read the Circulatory Diagram” (a worksheet), “Your Heart and Your Blood” (a reading passage), “The Path of Blood Through the Heart” (an ordering worksheet), a vocabulary crossword and a quiz.
The sheets are in a suggested teaching order: teach the lesson, have students label the blank diagrams, then work through the practice sheets and finish with the quiz. Use them all over a week or pick the ones you need. The answer keys are together at the back.
The diagrams are free to download on this page. The other sheets come with the pack ($7), which is also in the Elementary Science bundle (grades 3 to 6).
The parts of the circulatory system
The circulatory system pumps blood continuously around the body, delivering oxygen and nutrients to every cell and carrying waste products away. Here is what happens at each labeled part of the diagram:
| Part | What it does | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Heart | The muscular pump at the centre of the circulatory system — it beats about 100,000 times a day. | About the size of your fist and tucked slightly left of centre in your chest, the heart is the most tireless muscle in the body. It contracts and relaxes roughly 100,000 times every day — 35 million times a year — without ever taking a rest. If you live to 80, your heart will have beaten more than 2.5 billion times, pumping enough blood to fill about 200 swimming pools. |
| Aorta | The largest artery in the body, carrying oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the rest of the body. | The aorta leaves the top of the heart and arches over it like a cane before descending through the chest and abdomen. It branches repeatedly into smaller and smaller arteries that reach every tissue in the body. At its widest point the aorta is about as wide as a garden hose — its walls are correspondingly thick to withstand the surge of pressure with every heartbeat. |
| Pulmonary Artery | Carries oxygen-poor blood from the heart to the lungs. | This is the one artery in the body that carries deoxygenated blood — the opposite of every other artery — which is why it is sometimes coloured blue rather than red on diagrams. It leaves the right ventricle of the heart and splits almost immediately into left and right branches heading to each lung, where the blood picks up fresh oxygen and drops off carbon dioxide. |
| Pulmonary Vein | Returns oxygen-rich blood from the lungs back to the heart. | These are the only veins in the body that carry oxygenated blood, and there are four of them — two from each lung — all draining into the left atrium of the heart. From there the freshly oxygenated blood is pumped into the left ventricle, which pushes it out through the aorta to the rest of the body. |
| Superior Vena Cava | Returns oxygen-poor blood from the upper body and head back to the heart. | Formed by the merging of the two large veins draining the arms, head, and neck, the superior vena cava empties into the right atrium — the receiving chamber of the heart. Blood arriving here has already given up most of its oxygen to the tissues of the upper body and is a darker red than the bright-red oxygenated blood leaving the heart. |
| Inferior Vena Cava | Returns oxygen-poor blood from the lower body and legs back to the heart. | The largest vein in the body, the inferior vena cava runs alongside the aorta through the abdomen, collecting blood from the legs, kidneys, and digestive organs before emptying into the right atrium. The digestive organs add a twist — blood draining the intestines first passes through the liver via the portal vein, allowing the liver to process nutrients and remove toxins before the blood continues to the heart. |
| Carotid Artery | Supplies blood to the brain and head. | Two carotid arteries, one on each side of the neck, carry about 70 percent of the blood reaching the brain. You can feel the pulse of the carotid by lightly pressing the side of your neck — this is often where doctors and paramedics check for a pulse in an unconscious person. If blood flow through the carotids is blocked even briefly, unconsciousness can follow within seconds. |
| Femoral Artery | The main blood supply to the leg, running through the thigh. | The femoral artery is one of the largest arteries in the body and the primary blood supply for the entire lower limb. Because it runs close to the surface of the thigh and is large, uncontrolled bleeding from the femoral artery can be fatal within minutes — it is one of the injuries that battlefield medics treat first. Its pulse is also used to assess circulation in the legs during medical examinations. |
How to print
Choose Download PDF for a ready-to-print file that fits US Letter paper (8.5 × 11") in portrait, or Download PNG for the high-resolution image.
Frequently asked questions
What does the circulatory system do?
It pumps blood around the body to deliver oxygen and nutrients to every cell, and carries carbon dioxide and other waste products away to be removed.
What is the difference between arteries and veins?
Arteries carry blood away from the heart (usually oxygen-rich, shown in red); veins carry blood back to the heart (usually oxygen-poor, shown in blue).
What paper size should I print this on?
The diagram is sized for standard US Letter paper (8.5 × 11") in portrait orientation. Use "Download PDF" for a print-ready file that fits the page automatically.
Are there Heart and Circulation worksheets to go with the diagram?
Yes. The Heart and Circulation teaching pack, for grades 4 to 6, has 26 lesson slides and 11 printables with answer keys: the guided notes for the lesson slides, 4 diagram sheets, then “Read the Heart Diagram” (a worksheet), “Read the Circulatory Diagram” (a worksheet), “Your Heart and Your Blood” (a reading passage), “The Path of Blood Through the Heart” (an ordering worksheet), a vocabulary crossword and a quiz. The diagrams are free to download on this page. The other sheets come with the pack ($7), which is also in the Elementary Science bundle (grades 3 to 6).