Our Big Question:  Where does our food go?

In science, we have been investigating the effects of different liquids on our teeth. We put eggs into 7 different liquids - cola, diet cola, milk, water, coffee, tea, apple juice - and left them for several days to see what happened (eggshell and tooth enamel both contain calcium carbonate which dissolves in acidic conditions). For our experiment, we predicted what we thought might happen to the eggshells, left them for several days and then observed the changes and the reasons for them. We also tried brushing them with toothpaste to see how that helped. A thought-provoking experiment which may well affect our drink choices in future!

It's always fantastic to see the amazing home learning that the children have completed, and we were blown away by the creative digestive system-related work this term. 

Over the last few weeks we have been busy creating non-chronological reports all about teeth in our English lessons. We researched information, wrote our own texts and then presented them as double-page spreads in our books.  We're blown away by the pride the children have taken in these reports both with the content and presentation. Well done, Year 4!

As part of our learning about teeth, we have been looking into how we can keep our teeth healthy and what causes teeth to go rotten. In our science lesson, we used plaque disclosing tablets (which made the plaque on our teeth turn pink) and then carefully brushed our teeth to get rid of the plaque. We're definitely all going to clean our teeth properly from now on! 

This week we have been continuing to learn about the digestive system and we have focused on the saliva in our mouths. We've done an experiment where we each chewed a cracker and then spat it into a cup. Mrs Jeffery also crushed a cracker with her fingers and put some water from the tap on it.

The next day we looked at what had happened and found that the ones we had chewed had gone mushy and smelled sweeter than the one with just water. We then learned that this is because of the enzymes in our saliva (amylase to break down starchy foods into simple sugars and lipase to break down fats). We discussed how saliva helps to moisten our food to chew and swallow more easily (and makes it taste better!), and how it helps us digest more easily. Saliva is pretty amazing!

This afternoon we went outside with Year 3 to investigate how poo is made. We used a food bag as a stomach and put in a digestive biscuits, some banana and some orange juice. We took it in turns to churn it up, just like a stomach would! Next, we put the mixture into the leg of a pair of tights (the small intestine!) and then squeezed out all the excess liquid, just like the large intestine until the tights were storing all of what was left (just like a rectum). Finally, a hole was cut in the bottom of the tights and the mixture came out of the hole like faeces. We loved it! 

The whole way through the lesson, we were using scientific vocabulary that we have learned, such as the names of the parts of the digestive system and words such as faeces, nutrients and constipation.

We came to school wearing yellow today to raise money for and awareness of mental health.

Digestive System Drama!

We are going to be writing stories from the point of view of a piece of food moving its way through the digestive system.  Today, to help us prepare for writing our stories, we acted out the process of the digestive system and thought about what the piece of food might be able to feel, see and experience as it goes through.  It really made us think and we had lots of fun too!  Watch the video below to see the journey of Chloe (a strawberry!) through the digestive system!

We used our knowledge and learning about the digestive system to create these amazing see-through labelled diagrams. We tried hard to make the organs the right sizes and shapes, and to position then correctly in the body.