Burps, Bottoms and Bile

During this project the children will be thinking about our all important question: Where does our food go?

Open wide – let’s take a look inside. We’re on a voyage of discovery to investigate the busy world inside your body. Do you have a toothy grin or a winning smile? Take dental impressions and test the effects of sugary substances on your pearly whites. Follow a tasty morsel as it makes its way through your digestive system, helped by some mouthwatering saliva. And don’t forget the importance of good hygiene at both ends. And whilst we’re talking business, could you recognise an animal just by its poo? Are you brave enough to take the challenge? Make a working model of the digestive system and use it to persuade others to eat healthily. Learn how to look after this marvellous belching, squelching, mixture making machine we call our body.

Please encourage your child to look at their knowledge organiser regularly to support their learning

This week, we have set up a Science experiment using eggs. We put eggs into 6 different liquids to see how it affects the eggshell as the eggshell is the closest thing to enamel. We made a prediction and then left them on the windowsill. What do you think will happen? 

In our Science lesson this week, we have looked at types of teeth. We bit into a polystyrene cup gently to see the imprint of our teeth and labelled them correctly. We have also used this information to help us write our non-chronological reports in English this week.

Now we have learnt about the order of the digestive system, we've had a go at modelling making poo. We first had banana, digestives and orange juice to mush up in a bag representing the stomach. We squeezed the mushed food into a leg of tights representing the small intestine and squeezed as much water out of it as possible, doing the job of the large intestine. This was then in the toe of the tights representing the rectum and a hole was cut in it for the faeces to leave the body. A wonderful afternoon! 

To investigate the role of saliva in digestion, we each chewed a piece of cracker and spat it onto a pot. The next day, we looked at the difference between the cracker we had chewed and one that had been mixed with water. The one that had been chewed smelt much sweeter. We then had a discussion about enzymes and worked in groups to order the explanation. 

While looking at the importance of oral hygiene, we used plaque disclosing tablets and then brushed our teeth to try and remove it. It reminded us how important regular proper brushing is and was lots of fun too!

In English we have started a fantasy narrative, writing as if we are a piece of through travelling through the body. Here are some action shots!

Our task this afternoon was to make a wearable digestive system. We worked together to draw a lifelike digestive system onto laminate and then held it up infront of us to imagine what it's like inside. Great fun!