We learned about the digestive system in Science this month. We did an active demonstration of the digestion of a croissant.

First it entered the ‘mouth’ where it was broken down by the ‘teeth’. This is known as physical digestion.

Then, we added ‘saliva’ which is full of enzymes that help break down the croissant. This is known as chemical digestion.

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Next it moves from the oesophagus to the ‘stomach’. The stomach released digestive juices and acid (we added Coca Cola!) that broke down the croissant and killed harmful bacteria. The ‘muscles’ of the stomach sloshed the food together with the juices to make a soup called chyme. Physical and chemical digestion happened here.

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After that it moved down the ‘intestines’ where all the nutrients, water, minerals and salts were soaked up.

It was quite a messy process, and rather smelly! However it was a great way to learn about where our food goes.

We finished the lesson by labelling the parts of the digestive system.