All About the Digestive System

Fourth Grade Science,

by Sanayya Sohail September 19, 2015

Use this lesson to show your students how food travels from the mouth to the stomach. Additionally, show them
how the digestive system delivers important nutrients to other parts of the body and also excretes wastes from
the body.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to identify the various parts of the digestive system. Students will be able to identify the
function of the various parts of the digestive system.

Materials and preparation

Digestive System worksheet

What Is Digestion? worksheet
Human Digestion worksheet
What Happens When You Eat? worksheet
Writing journals or writing paper

Attachments

Digestive System (PDF)

What Is Digestion? (PDF)
Human Digestion (PDF)
What Happens When You Eat? (PDF)

Introduction (5 minutes)

Tell your students that today they will be learning about the digestive system.
Explain that the digestive system consists of various parts that enables food to enter your stomach, be
absorbed and distributed, and be released from your body in the form of waste.

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling (40 minutes)

Go over the Digestive System worksheet with your students.

Explain each part using the blurb on the side of the worksheet and come up with some examples to help
clarify.
An example for the esophagus: Explain to your students that the esophagus carries food from the throat
to the stomach. Tell your students that chewing something large makes you cough because it gets stuck
in your esophagus. Explain to your students that problems with the esophagus can lead to heartburn,
chest pain and difficulty swallowing.

Guided Practice (15 minutes)

Ask your students to complete the What Is Digestion? worksheet with a partner.
Go over the worksheet as a class.

Get more lesson plans at https://www.education.com/lesson-plans/

Independent working time (25 minutes)

Ask your students to complete the Human Digestion worksheet.

Go over the worksheet with your students as a class.

Differentiation

Enrichment: Ask your students to pick a part of the digestive system. Have them research the structure
and functions of the part. Ask your students to research the diseases associated with damage to that
part. Have your students to write a four paragraph essay explaining their research findings.
Support: Explain the process of what happens when you eat a piece of food using a specific example.
Give a piece of this food item to your students. Have them eat it while you explain what is happening to
the piece of food that they are eating. For example, tell your students that their teeth is grinding the food
in their mouths. After the food is broken down, it will go through the esophagus. Point to the esophagus
and ask your students if they feel the food there. Explain that the food item they ate will go to the
stomach after it leaves the esophagus. Explain to your students that the food is broken down in the
stomach and goes through the small intestine after it leaves the stomach. Tell your students that the
energy they get from the food is because the blood picks it up from the small intestine and delivers it to
the cells. Explain that the leftover food goes to the large intestine and the large intestine enables it to the
exit the body.

Assessment (10 minutes)

Ask your students to complete the What Happens When You Eat? worksheet.

Review and closing (30 minutes)

Divide your students into groups of four.

Ask them to write a song or a poem that uses at least four parts of the digestive system as a group.
Ask each group to read their poem or sing their song out loud to the class.

Get more lesson plans at https://www.education.com/lesson-plans/

Digestive System
The digestive system breaks food
down to tiny molecules that can be absorbed
into the bloodstream and distributed to cells.
1. salivary glands: glands in the cheeks 1
1
and under the tongue which produce saliva
1

to moisten food as it is chewed. Salivary 1

glands also secrete enzymes which
break down starches in the mouth.
2
2. esophagus: muscular tube which
creates peristaltic waves to carry
swallowed food from the throat
to the stomach.
3. stomach: muscular organ which
churns food and secretes enzymes and
acids for food digestion.

4. small intestine: hollow tract

where chemical digestion continues
6
and nutrients are absorbed into the
bloodstream. 3
5. pancreas: organ which 7
secretes enzymes for starch 5
and protien digestion into the
small intestine.
8
6. liver: organ which processes
digested food into useful substances
for the body, secretes bile for fat 4
digestion, and removes toxins from
the blood
7. gall bladder: storage sac for
bile located on the lower surface of
the liver.
9
8. colon: main part of the
large intestine which absorbs
water from indigestible food.

9. rectum:
large intestine which eliminates waste
material from the body.

2011-2012 by Education.com
Copyright © 2010-2011 More worksheets at www.education.com/worksheets
 What is Digestion?
Digestion is the way your body gets nutrients and energy
from the food you eat. Many organs help in digestion.

Esophagus

Liver
Stomach

Small Intestine
Large Intestine

Vocabulary
Nutrients: it is material needed to feed your body.
Esophagus: tube where food goes down to your stomach.
Stomach: a bag like organ that helps dissolve food.
Small Intestine: long tube where nutrients are taken from food.
Large Intestine: last tube where water is taken out of eaten food.
Liver: helps get rid of harmful things.

Copyright © 2012-2013
2010-2011 by Education.com More worksheets at www.education.com/worksheets
 What is Digestion?
Color and name some
of the organs that help
in digestion.

Word Bank
Large Intestine Esophagus
Stomach Small Intestine Liver

Copyright © 2012-2013
2010-2011 by Education.com More worksheets at www.education.com/worksheets
 Human Digestion
Esophagus

Stomach

Small Intestine

Large Intestine

Rectum

Digestion starts in our mouth, as food is grinded by our teeth and mixed with saliva then
swallowed. Food travels down through our body through the esophagus before entering
the stomach. In the stomach food is broken up into smaller pieces. It then enters the
small intestine where the majority is absorbed and digested by chemicals that the liver
excretes. The nutrients are absorbed through the walls of the small intestine and then
picked up by the blood to be transported to all the cells of our body. What is left travels
through our long intestine or colon where water is absorbed then exits our body
through the colon.

Created by:
Copyright © 2012-2013 by Education.com More worksheets at www.education.com/worksheets
 Human Digestion
1. Where does human digestion start?

2. Before entering the stomach food travels through the...

3. Where is food broken up into smaller pieces?

4. Which part of the small intestine absorbs the nutrients found in food?

5. What transports food to all the cells of our body?

6. What organ excretes chemicals to digest food in the small intestine?

7. Where does the our food travel through before entering the colon?

8. What is in charge of grinding our food?

9. After all nutrients are absorbed, waste that is left exits through the...

10. Before being swallowed, what mixes with food to soften it up?

Created by:
Copyright © 2012-2013 by Education.com More worksheets at www.education.com/worksheets
What happens when you eat?
Directions: Color in the different parts of the digestive system, cut
them out, and glue them in the right place on the body.
nasal and
(hints: Start at the top. After the tongue, connect the pieces as mouth cavity
you go. Glue the small intestines under the large intestines.)

stomach

esophagus

small
intestines

large
intestines

tongue