Digestive System — It All Starts in the Mouth!

To start off our unit on the digestive system, I had the kids look at a diagram and write down all the parts of the digestive system. That was the first section of the pack I made (more about that below). Then we took a closer look at the mouth.

We did these activities over the course of several days:

I asked the kids what the mouth’s role is in the digestive system. They quickly guessed chewing, but couldn’t go into much more detail than that.

We looked at the role of our teeth… and learned about the different types of teeth we have.  We made “dental impressions” with Model Magic, modeling clay. We looked at the surface area created by our different types of teeth.

Did you know that everyone has a unique dental impression?  We compared impressions — and it was super easy to figure out DD’s impression (she lost her front tooth!!)

I asked them to bite into a carrot and asked them where they put the carrot (in their two front teeth of course except for DD who has no front teeth at the moment!! Yes, she lost the other one! LOL! She enjoyed using our teeth puppet instead! Boy, you should have heard the sound effects… it sounded like a bear going after that carrot. It still makes me chuckle thinking about it!)

• Incisors: Cut or slice food

• Canines – tear or rip food. Naturally, we had to look closely at Boomer’s impressive canines!

• Premolars and Molars – grind the food.

We took a carrot and chewed it a pre-set number of times… 5 times, 10 times and 20 times. Then we spit it out onto a plate. We also chewed a carrot 10 and 20 times while smelling some sweet peppermint candy to see if there was extra saliva!

That ball of food is called a bolus.

We talked quite a bit about saliva.  Saliva has several functions. It is made mostly of water which coats and lubricates the food. It also has enzymes that start to break down the starches. Did you know your body creates 2 quarts of saliva each day!  Whoa!

The kids did this simple activity about the role of saliva — chewing a cracker for two minutes and trying to see if the cracker tasted by the end as the enzymes broke the starch down into sugar. They also smashed a cracker and added water to see the role of liquid in creating a nice gooey glob to swallow and compared it to the “unchewed” cracker. You could also compare a chewed and spit-out cracker to one just with added water, but we didn’t do that.

We read this great/gross book called Hawk & Drool: Gross Stuff in Your Mouth. (affiliate link)  The kids loved it! It had gross facts like — nearly 100,000 droplets of mucousy saliva comes spewing out when you sneeze!

This packet has been combined with the other worksheet sets in this unit. This packet also includes interactive notebook pieces (ie. lapbook pieces) Also included are the hands-on activities our kids did during this unit.

This 100+ page packet is now on sale for $5.99. See below for more details and all that is included:

This is an instant purchase. Upon receipt of payment from Paypal, you will receive a link to immediately download this packet.

Once you pay for this packet, you will immediately receive a link to download this file (which will open in a browser window).  You will also receive an email from Sendowl (the service I use), which will have a link you can click on to download the Digestive System Unit.  (It will say, “You can download your digital products…” with a clickable link.)  Of course, if you have any issues just email me at — liesl at homeschoolden dot com.  You can also reach me by using the contact form on the blog.

It’s recently been updated so it is now well over 100+ pages!

See the Human Body Bundle option below.

$5.99

Don’t forget to check your PayPal email address for the download link!

What is included? Everything you see below:  

The Digestive System Unit Packet now includes lapbook/notebook pieces:     Also included are worksheets and our hand-on activities of the mouth

  You will also find worksheets and activity ideas about swallowing, the epiglottis and choking in this packet:

And there is a cut-and-paste on Digestive System Functions:

When our family studied the Digestive System again, we spent quite a bit of time learning about the small intestine; liver, gall bladder and pancreas; and the large intestine.  I added a dozen new pages to the packet.  You can choose either the fill-in-the-blank notebook pages or use these pages as supplementary readings (with no words missing!).

Making the Digestive System Flapbook:

Here’s another close-up of the flap-book activity (There are two versions one that kids cut-and-paste that you saw above and this one that has the photos right on the paper.)

Plus, the Digestive System Packet now includes a new section on Nutrition – Fiber and Vitamins

By the way, if you’re studying the mouth you might want to do this cute activity we did last year about the importance of brushing your teeth. Click on the picture for more details:

Related Posts That Might Interest You:

• Creating a Homeschool Science Curriculum (Elementary): Science topics to cover, choosing and preparing for units and more.
• Human Body Systems:

• Human Body Unit: Heart and Circulatory System Activities
• Human Body Unit: The Human Hand
• Human Body Unit: The Brain
• Human Body Egg-speriment: Protect that Brain!

• Human Body: Skeletal System
• Meet Vertebrae Man: Our Hands on Study of the Backbone and Nervous System
• Germ Lapbook

• Germ Experiment: Where do Germs Grow in Your House?

Check out our other science units:

• Rocks and Minerals: Free 25 page packet, free pages on the 3-types of rocks, lots of hands on activities

• Simple Machines: Lots of hands on activities and student worksheets:

• Earth Science Activities
• Weather Unit