Year 3 - Where does my food go?

We know it starts in our mouth and where it comes out! Where does it go in between? Does it all come out?

We started with an overview of the digestive system with the children demonstrating their understanding by acting out how food moves through the body with some expectedly embarrassing endings!

From further reading, we discovered that if you stretched out the small intestine it would be as long as the classroom: one of many facts met with the gleeful delight of our buddying scientists.

Each week, we will be looking at each part of this amazing system in greater detail.

This week we explored where digestion begins - the mouth. We experienced the different tastes we have by sampling different foods and liquids. This helped us to identify where the different tastes : sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami are located on our tongues.

We also fostered that spirit of investigation by looking at how saliva helps to break down food in our mouth to create bolus and the role the teeth and tongue have in the process.

Next week we continue our journey as we travel down the oesophagus into the stomach. Isn’t it amazing that we know so little about what is in front of (and below) our very eyes.

Some questions we wanted answering

How much bacteria is in the mouth? You have about 20 billion bacteria in your mouth at any given time.

How many taste buds do we have? The average person has about 10,000 taste buds and they're replaced every 2 weeks or so.