How we digest food

Ages 9 to 12 Read alone or together · about 25 minutes

Read together

Digestion breaks food into tiny parts our body can use. It starts in the mouth and ends in the intestines.

Teeth chew, the stomach mixes, and the intestines take in nutrients.

Do it

1. Chew a cracker slowly for a minute. Notice it tastes sweeter as saliva breaks down the starch.
2. Draw the path of food: mouth, throat, stomach, small intestine, large intestine.
3. Squeeze a banana and water in a bag to model the stomach mixing.
4. List foods that give you energy, and foods that help you grow.

Talk about it

• Where does digestion begin?
• Why do we chew well?

For the grown-up

Digestion begins in the mouth with chewing and saliva. Check for allergies before food experiments. Never force a child to eat. Bag models are best done with a grown-up nearby.

Mark as done

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Where this comes from

• NGSS Lead States, Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States (National Academies Press, 2013), performance expectation MS-LS1-3 (body systems interact to provide function)
• National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, pages on the digestive system and how it works

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.