Respiratory Tree Tees and Periodic Table Paper Bag Puppets

We have been completely indoors for a week now due to hazardous air quality from nearby wildfires. The kids have really missed their usual outdoor play. Fortunately, the air quality has been improving… slowly. We took advantage of this unique opportunity to talk about the elements in our air and what makes our current air so bad. I explained about carbon monoxide and particulate matter and the dangers in breathing too much of these things and we crafted. Specifically I made respiratory tree tees for them and we made periodic table paper bag puppets together.

I made a simple drawing of our airways in pencil, outlined the final picture with a Sharpie then placed underneath some white plain tees to trace. As my kids wore their new shirts, I explained how air travels down their trachea which branch off to form two main bronchi that bring air to their right and left lung. I reviewed how the right lung has three lobes while the left lung has only two and talked about how the right main bronchus is more vertical and thus when people aspirate, things are more likely to go to their right lung. I then explained how our airways are like upside down trees, further branching off into smaller bronchi, then into bronchioles, eventually into respiratory bronchioles, ending in small grape like air sacs called alveoli where oxygen exchange occurs. They had fun learning about their airways and enjoyed wearing their new tees.

We recently purchased a great Usborne Lift-the-flap book about the periodic table. The kids love how the elements were pictured like people with different and similar personalities. This, along with the stash of paper bags in our pantry, inspired us to create our periodic table paper bag puppets. We began with Nitrogen (talking about how it makes up 78% of our air), Oxygen (how it makes up 21%), then went on to make Argon, Carbon, Neon, Hydrogen, Helium, Krypton, Xenon, and Iodine (the other 1%). The kids continued to make even more puppets with other elements that perked their interest.

Attached is the pdf file for the 118 elements. They print four to a page and are color coded to match the table represented in the Usborne book. This file can be printed out onto cardstock for more durability and used as flashcards, on scavenger hunts, or attached to paper bags to make puppets as we did. For younger kids, googly eyes or circles, and simple arms and legs out of construction paper can be cut for them to glue onto their puppets. Older kids can just be given a pile of paper to cut out their own appendages and be challenged to write how many protons each element contains and even recreate a giant periodic table. The free download is available here:

I printed out extra carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen to illustrate how carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and ozone are formed. My kids had fun playing with them, making them dance, talk, and crash into each other. My toddler even started to memorize the elements and their corresponding symbols and my seven year old was able to grasp the concept of how each molecule of carbon dioxide was made up of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms.

If your child enjoyed the above, they may also like:

Here’s hoping for some rain soon so we can enjoy some clean air again!