creative writing digestive system

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The Digestive System: A Narrative

In this activity, activity overview, template and class instructions, more storyboard that activities, this activity is part of many teacher guides.

When explaining a process, it's often more fun to make a narrative out of it! Give students the ability to show off their creativity by creating a narrative storyboard that illustrates the story of how food is digested . Students can add characters, faces, and frame the story from the perspective of someone eating the food. To scaffold the activity or provide an alternative, give students the text and have them create the illustrations using Storyboard That.

(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Copy Activity", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)

Student Instructions

Demonstrate your understanding of the digestive by creating a narrative storyboard. Tell the story of a piece of food as it travels through the alimentary canal. Make sure you include all the different stages from the mouth the anus. You should use a series of scenes, shapes, objects and Textables to tell your story.

• Click "Start Assignment".
• Create your narrative storyboard. Add cells as needed.

Lesson Plan Reference

Grade Level 6-12

Difficulty Level 4 (Difficult / Complex)

Type of Assignment Individual

(You can also create your own on Quick Rubric .)

Digestive System

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22 Hands-On Digestive System Activity Ideas 

February 26, 2023 //  by  Mhairi Sim

Teaching about the digestive system is a great way to plan some opportunities for students to get hands-on with their learning. This classroom unit is the perfect time to get a bit messy with some super science experiments or to take part in any other engaging activities you can incorporate into their digestive system lesson plans. 

We have gathered 22 of the most exciting digestive system activity ideas for elementary students. Read on to learn more and start exploring this fun topic with your students!

1. The Dr. Binocs Show Digestive System Video

This fun video is a fantastic introduction to the digestive system. It looks at what happens to food once it enters our bodies and covers the different stages of digestion. Use this video as a hook for your lesson or as a fun plenary. 

Learn More: Peekaboo Kidz

2. Hands-On Digesting System Experiment

This interactive activity is sure to be a memorable one as it offers a hands-on look at the digestive tract! This fun activity prompts students to replicate every stage of digestion; from ingestion to expulsion and even includes an intestine simulation using pantyhose.

Learn More: 123Homeschool4Me

3. How The Stomach Digests Food Experiment

This activity using zip-lock bags gives students a great look at what happens to the food in our stomachs during digestion. All you will need is some zip-lock bags, clear soda, and different types of food for this fun, hands-on lesson about digestion.

Learn More: Gift of Curiosity

4. Digestive System Craft

Using a straw, some string, and some paper digestive organs, students can stick all these items into an outline of a person to create this 3D model of the digestive tract! 

Learn More: Living Life and Learning

5. DIY Digestive System Demo

This demonstration shows how the digestive system processes various food mixtures from start to end using everyday household items. This is perfect to show students before they complete this activity for themselves, or to show if you don’t have the time or space to complete this interactive activity in class.

Learn More: Kristelle Marie

6. Digestive System Labeling Activity

A labeling activity is a fantastic opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge by identifying different digestive organs. Students could also draw their own pictures rather than label them on a pre-made worksheet.

Learn More: Pinterest

7. Where Do The Organs Belong? Worksheet

This worksheet allows students to place individual organs in the correct place in the digestive tract. They can then label the organs once they have cut them out and stuck them into the correct position.

Learn More: Worksheet Place

8. Stomach in a Bag Experiment

This fantastic activity replicates the effect that acids have in breaking down food once it enters the stomach. Using just a balloon, some water, oil, and oats, this activity is low-cost and easy to use as a resource for each learner in your whole class. 

Learn More: Gameschool Academy

9. Play Dough Digestive System Modelling 

These printable human body worksheets are the perfect resource for a whole host of creative digestive system activities. One such activity is to laminate these sheets and create a play dough mat for students to recreate a 3-D image of the digestive system.

10. Fun Digestive System Sensory Activity

This super simple sensory bag activity is perfect for younger students. Not only does it teach them about the digestive tract and where our food goes, but it also strengthens motor skills as students push the “food” through the drawn-on digestive tract. 

Learn More: Tasks Sheet Design

11. Bile Breaking Down Fat Experiment

This super experiment demonstrates the effects of stomach acid and food enzymes and how they break down fat in the digestive tract. All you will need to complete this activity is some milk, food coloring, dish soap, and a cotton ball. 

Learn More: Simple Southern

12. Digestion Game

This fun board game is a great tool to test student’s knowledge about the digestive system. Students could also create their own games in groups or as long-term homework tasks. They will then have heaps of fun playing each others’ games and seeing who knows the information the best! 

13. Printable Life-Sized Organs

These printable, life-sized body organs are great for demonstrating what our digestive organs actually look like; displaying their size and where they fit into our bodies. These printables are also great for making a larger-scale display for your classroom.

Learn More: Adventure in a Box

14. Digestive System Labeling Worksheet

This printable worksheet is a cut-and-stick labeling activity that is perfect for younger learners as they get to grips with the new vocabulary involved in this topic. Learners will quickly learn the names of the digestive organs with this great resource. 

15. The Digestive System Educational Video

This video is an amazing watch to introduce the key facts about our digestive system and what happens to our food during digestion. You could build on this video by creating a list of comprehension questions for students to answer after viewing the video.

Learn More: Happy Learning English

16. Digestive System Crossword Printable Worksheet

This entertaining puzzle worksheet is a great way to fill some time at the end of a lesson and consolidate vocabulary learned in a lesson. This activity is a relaxing and calm plenary for older students. 

Learn More: St. George Hub

17. Digestive System Flap Book Activity

This exciting flap book activity is a fun way for students to demonstrate and display their learning about the different parts of the digestive system. You could use a specific template or let your students get creative and come up with their own designs. Under each flap, they can write facts or explain what functions specific parts carry out during the process of digestion.

Learn More: Teaching in Room 6

18. Digestive System Worksheet

This worksheet is a great activity for slightly younger students. Students need to match each picture with the organ associated with digestion, and then order the different stages of digestion. This is a super way to assess individual learning before progressing through the topic or moving on.

Learn More: Live Worksheets

19. Digestive System Apron

This apron is a super idea to complete with your students. Your students could complete one per group, using diagrams for guidance, or you could complete one yourself and have it in your classroom for students to put on and learn about where their different digestive organs are!

Learn More: Musely

20. Digestive System Quiz Video

This quiz is packed full of digestive system questions for students. This is the perfect activity to gauge understanding and knowledge of this topic. 

Learn More: Kids Scholar

21. Play Dough Anatomy Activity

This activity cleverly recycles a plastic mold commonly found when buying a bathing suit. Draw the outlines of digestive organs on the mold using a  permanent marker. Then, your students can use play dough to fill in the gaps and create the organs.

Learn More: Teach Beside Me

22. Digestive System Activity Pack

These engaging activities are a perfect addition to any lesson plan on the digestive system. This free pack has activities ranging from labeling and color-by-numbers to reading comprehension passages with questions.

Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers

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22 Hands-On Digestive System Activity Ideas

• Elementary Education

Introduction:

Teaching students about the digestive system can be more fun and engaging with a variety of hands-on activities. Here are 22 creative ideas to help students grasp the inner workings of our body’s vital digestion process.

1.Edible Esophagus: Create an edible model of the esophagus using licorice pieces or gummy worms as the muscles and marshmallows for the sphincters.

2.DIY Stomach Model: Make a model stomach using a plastic ziplock bag and add crackers and water to demonstrate how food is broken down mechanically and chemically.

3.Small Intestine Tube: Use pool noodles or long socks filled with foam beads to represent the small intestine and demonstrate peristalsis.

4.Nutrient Absorption Game: Create a board game where students use game pieces to “absorb” different types of nutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, etc.) and move around the board accordingly.

5.Anatomy Puzzle: Print out or create a large-scale puzzle of the digestive system, allowing students to piece together organs and their functions as they construct it.

6.Play-Doh Organs: Have students create their own digestive system organs out of play-doh and arrange them properly within a human body outline.

7.Digestive Process Skit: Assign roles to each student representing different parts of the digestive system, demonstrating food traveling through the body.

8.Digestive System Rap: Encourage students to write raps or songs that illustrate key concepts about the digestive system, then perform them in class.

9.Stuffed Animal Dissection: Use stuffed animals with Velcro pouches for organs, allowing students to explore anatomy in a non-graphic way.

10.Virtual Field Trip: Explore virtual tours of medical facilities or anatomy museums to see real-life examples of organs and systems functioning together.

11.Toothbrush Painting: Teach students about the importance of maintaining good oral health through a fun and creative toothbrush painting activity.

12.Digestion Relay Race: Organize a relay race with tasks, such as chewing marshmallows, moving marbles using plastic tubings, and more to demonstrate various aspects of digestion.

13.Indoor Scavenger Hunt: Hide cutouts of the digestive system organs throughout your classroom for an educational scavenger hunt.

14.”What Am I?” Game: Have students write descriptions or riddles about different parts of the digestive system, and let others guess what part they are describing.

15.Comparing Digestive Systems: Research and compare the digestive systems of animals, discussing similarities and differences with respect to human anatomy.

16.Food Enzyme Simulation: Assign different foods to students along with their enzyme counterparts, demonstrating how enzymes break down specific nutrients.

17.Digestive System Trivia: Host a trivia game to challenge students’ knowledge on digestion-related facts and figures.

18.Stomach Balloon Experiment: Fill up balloons to simulate stomach expansion during a meal or after consuming gas-producing food items.

19.Microbiome Terrarium: Create terrariums showcasing how gut bacteria thrives in specific conditions, explaining its role in digestion and overall health.

20.Coloring Book Pages: Provide coloring pages that depict each organ within the digestive system, encouraging artistic learning alongside memorization.

21.Hands-On Jeopardy: Create a Jeopardy-style game involving physically manipulating organ models or other props related to digestion when answering questions correctly.

22.Personalized Digestive Track Poster: Ask each student to research their favorite animal’s digestive track and create a poster presenting unique features they discovered when compared to human anatomy.

Conclusion:

These hands-on activities will keep your students engaged while providing them with valuable activities.

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Food’s journey through the digestive system.

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A look at the time it takes for food to pass through the gut from mouth to anus. In a healthy adult, transit time is about 24–72 hours.

Read the article The human digestive system for further information.

Before eating: Sights, sounds and smells of food

Digestive activity begins with the sights, sounds and smells of food. Just looking at or smelling appetising food can result in the brain sending signals to the salivary glands to make the mouth water and to the stomach to secrete gastric juice.

Chewing: Ingestion 1

Chewing mechanically mixes food with saliva from the salivary glands. Amylase in saliva chemically digests starch in the food. The mixing process is lubricated by mucin , a slippery protein in saliva. Each mouthful takes approximately 30–60 seconds.

Swallowing: Ingestion 2

The food is formed into a small ball called a bolus, which is pushed to the back of the mouth by the tongue. Involuntary muscle contractions in the pharynx then push the bolus down towards the oesophagus. This swallowing reflex takes about 1–3 seconds.

Peristalsis: Ingestion 3

In the oesophagus, the bolus is moved along by rhythmic contractions of the muscles present in its walls. For a medium-sized bolus, it takes about 5–8 seconds to reach the stomach.

Time to empty: Stomach

Food is mixed with gastric juice. Strong muscular contractions in the stomach wall reduce the food to chyme – a thick milky material. The pyloric sphincter at the lower end of the stomach slowly releases chyme into the duodenum. Emptying the stomach takes 2–6 hours.

Time to empty: Small intestine

It takes 3–5 hours from entry to the duodenum to exit from the ileum. The small intestine’s structure of folds, villi and microvilli increases the absorptive surface area and allows maximum exposure to enzymes and complete absorption of the end products of digestion.

Digestion: Duodenum

Small amounts of chyme are ejected approximately every 20 seconds from the stomach into the duodenum. The chyme is mixed with secretions from the pancreas and gall bladder. These fluids contain bicarbonate, enzymes and bile salts essential to the digestion process.

Absorption: Jejunum

Peristaltic waves of muscular contraction mix and move the chyme down the duodenum and into the jejunum. It has a huge surface area created by finger-like structures called villi. These assist with the absorption of the end products of digestion into the bloodstream.

Absorption: Ileum

By the time chyme has reached the ileum, most of the digestion processes involving carbohydrate, protein and fats have occurred. Its main function is to absorb the end products of digestion and release hormones that regulate feelings of fullness.

Elapsed time: Ileocaecal valve

Undigested remains of food are passed through a one-way muscular valve into the first part of the large intestine known as the caecum – a small pouch that acts as a temporary storage site. By the time food remains have reached this point, about 5–12 hours have elapsed.

Colon time: Large intestine

The large intestine is 1.5–1.8m in length and is divided into the caecum, colon and rectum. The colon is further divided into 4 parts – ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon and sigmoid colon. Watch this video to find out more about the function of the large intestine .

Fermentation: Colon

Slower peristaltic movements push undigested food remains along the colon, which mix freely with the resident bacterial population. The bacteria ferment some of the food remains, producing short-chain fatty acids as well other important chemicals such as vitamin K.

Mass shift: Sigmoid colon

The liquid from the small intestine changes into a semi-solid form known as a stool. The sigmoid colon temporarily stores the stool until a mass movement empties it into the rectum. Residence time in the colon ranges from 4–72 hours, with a normal average of 36 hours.

Egestion: Rectum

The rectum’s external opening, the anus, is controlled by a set of muscles. When filled by a mass movement from the sigmoid colon, the rectum is stretched and produces the desire to defecate. If inhibited, the urge to defecate subsides but returns several hours later.

Watch this animated video: Digestion of food as a follow up to this article.

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Digestive System

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Digestive System Classroom Activities

Are you looking for some fun ways to teach your students about the digestive system? This digestive system unit is the perfect resource for the upper elementary classroom. I created this resource several years ago after struggling to find student-friendly text and classroom activities for the digestive system. Why can’t our textbooks just include what we need to teach?! That question is for another day…

Ten days of digestive system lesson plans and engaging activities are included. Now let’s take a little sneak peek into everything that is included.

Digestive System Lesson Plans

You will save so much time not having to piece text and activities together for a digestive unit. Learning objectives have been identified and easy to follow plans are included. All needed materials are there for you to print and use immediately.

Digestive System Videos

Videos are a great way to build background knowledge or engage students. The QR videos and links included teach students about the digestive system as a whole, but also the various organs within it and their jobs.

Digestive System Facts for Kids

As a teacher who spent over 10 years in the public school classroom, I know firsthand what you need to teach isn’t always in the district adopted curriculum. The fact book covers the digestive system, what digestion is, the organs/parts within the system, what waste is and how to keep the digestive system healthy. Its jam packed full of information for your students to use throughout the digestive unit.

Coloring Notes

In my opinion coloring notes are the BEST invention for elementary note taking! They are fun for kids while ensuring they get the information they need to know. It is another way to teach children what quality noes are and how to “take them”. They are a Rocket Resource staple in many units for good reason! This unit includes so many versions of notes for you to choose from. I have notes on the whole digestive system as well as coloring notes on the organs. Each one includes a color version, black and white, and blank to differentiate instruction as needed.

Digestive System Diagrams for Kids

Its no surprise kids learn best with a variety of learning styles. Including lots of visuals is VERY helpful when teaching about the human body and all its organs. I have included 2 different versions of the digestive system within this unit, both in black and white as well as color. I also have quick digestive system organ match game, which also includes individual pictures of all the organs found within the system.

Digestive System Functions

Learn about the functions of the digestive system with coloring notes and a writing activity.

You can get this digestive unit here! You and your students will love it!

Looking for ways to teach the other body systems to your students? Check out these blog posts!

Muscular system classroom unit, skeletal system classroom unit.

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• Digestive System Notebooking Pages

Learning about the human body is very interesting. There is also so much to learn, so to make it easier, I have created these notebooking pages for your child to study and learn about a small part of the body at a time. This week, I have these Digestive System Notebooking Pages for you.

Digestive System Notebooking Pages

This Pack contains 43 pages:

• three covers to choose from
• 2 sets of writing lines: one for the younger children and one for the older ones
• picture pages for labelling
• 22 different pages for each of the writing lines
• black and white and colour pages to choose from

  Human Body Activity Book for Kids: Hands-On   My First Human Body Book   Inside Your Outside: All About the Human   Human Body! (Knowledge Encyclopedias)   The Anatomy Coloring Book   Uncover the Human Body: An Uncover It   My Body (Science Books)   Eyewitness Visual Dictionaries: The Visual Dictionary of   Teacher Created Materials – TIME For Kids   The Quest to Digest   How Food Travels In The Body –   The Stomach and More: Digestive System Coloring   Your Digestive System (Searchlight Books TM –

To grab your copy of these Notebooking Pages, sign up below:

For more Human Body Notebooking Pages, check out these below:

• Skeleton Notebooking Pages
• Respiratory  System  Notebooking Pages
• Reproductive System Notebooking Pages
• Circulatory System Notebooking Pages
• Nervous System Notebooking Pages
• Muscular System Notebooking Pages
• Lymphatic System Notebooking Pages
• Excretory System Notebooking Pages
• Endocrine System Notebooking Pages 

For more great Studies, check out the posts below:

• Bones, Joints and Muscles 
• Brain and Nervous System 
• Dental Activities
• Digestive System and Nutrition  
• Doctors Bag 
• Excretory System 
• Heart, Blood and Circulatory 
• Immune System and Germs
• Reproductive System
• Respiratory System
• Skin, Hair and Nails

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Digestive System - Writing Task (KS3/GCSE)

Subject: Biology

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

22 July 2023

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Task - describe a journey of a ham and cheese sandwich through the digestive system.

There is a ‘Level Ladder’ from grades 4-9 and things to include to achieve each level. This is useful for students so they know what they need to write about to achieve their target grade. Level ladder also helps with marking and determining a grade.

I’ve used this for cover lessons, end of topic assessments and classwork that spills over into homework. Students generally get quite interested and like being creative whilst also applying their knowledge.

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Human Body DIGESTIVE SYSTEM - Fun Writing Assignment

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