Our Food's Journey Inside Our Body

We had so much fun from yesterday’s sweet potato dig. We were so happy to feel the soil and dig them up and finally pull them from the ground. Now we know exactly where sweet potatoes come from. During free play, we had an area  where we used a magnifying glass to be able to examine sweet potatoes and its vines closely. It was so cool! We were able to draw sweet potatoes as well!

We have been learning  about our body and how it works. Last week, we talked about our lungs.  Lungs, like our heart is located inside our body so we cannot really see how it works to help our body. Since we have learned some facts about our lungs, we had a simple project which could help us visualize how it works for our body. We traced the lungs, mouth and nose and cut them all by ourselves. Then we taped two straws together for two plastic bags. We were so thrilled to see that what happens to the plastic bags when we breathed in and out through the straws. Lungs do a great job so we can breathe air in and out!

In our circle time, we were so excited to show our friends how our lung project works. How we wanted to take it home  to show to our families, but we think for now, they will stay in our portfolio.

Some of our friends will continue to work on their lung project tomorrow. We’re looking forward to it!

 We had a fun-filled morning free play where we built houses and towers with Kapla blocks, decorated birthday cards for our friends and measured our skeleton as well! To our surprise, our skeleton did not grow and instead got shorter (from 63.5 cm to 61 cm). We will keep him out of the water and observe what happens to its height and weight as days pass by.

Then came our circle time. We read a book called Obentobako no Uta by Shinobu Saitoh  and checked every food that was mentioned in it. We tried to guess what was inside of it and S said: “It’s sandwich!”, while M said that, “I think it’s sweet potatoes and butter nut squash.”  Wonderful guesses!!!

Our excitement built up as we started turning the page of the story book. Our Japanese-speaking friends helped us in translating the food names into Japanese. M expressed his opinion about furikake or toppings. He said that “It is something that we put in the rice bowl but if you do put it on the rice bowl, you need to mix it and it’s yummy!” . We did a finger play about the Obento Bako or lunch box.

This finger play sparked the beginning of an interesting discussion about digestive system. We did a pretend play about eating a piece of marshmallow. We closed our eyes and it seemed like we had a real one right in front of us!

V: Do you know what happens when we think of food?

W: What happens is that it breaks the food. We think about it. And then we want it.

V: Our mouth produces saliva or spit.

R: When we eat food, next time we break our teeth if we don’t brush our teeth .

Ms: You will get a hole and doctor will have to fill it with ouchy stuff.

M: If you eat so many hard thing, your teeth will break.

S: If you eat something yummy and you bite it and your teeth fall down, then blood comes out.

Hmm, it seems like we think of taking care of our teeth and what happens when we don’t whenever we talk about our mouth.  It is great to hear that we know these things since they are important! 

As our discussion continued, our teacher brought up what R mentioned last week. He said, “ What if dinosaur eat people? We become the dinosaur’s poo?”. Who never poos?, our teacher asked and we all giggled as we heard this funny question.  Some of our friends shared what they had for breakfast.

S: Oatmeal with honey.

A: Yogurt, crackers and fruit.

S: Bread, kiwi and cheese.

Then our teacher asked where our food right now which pricked our brain a little!

A: They become poo.

V: Did you already poo?

Class: Noooo!

V: If I put this biscuit in now, does it come now? Does it look like this biscuit when it comes out as poo?

Ra Just like brown.

A: If you eat tomatoes, you can see it in your poo poo. Sometimes it can be red.

M: We put food in our mouth, we chew it and it goes into our stomach.

How interesting! We learned big words such as digestion which starts in our mouth. Then our food goes into a special tube called the esophagus which pushes down our food into our stomach. It was awesome to learn that our stomach has a shape like the letter “J”, to which Ja said, “Just like the Ja!”. 

Wi also mentioned that he thinks “Our food goes into our tummy….and we haven’t talked about it yet!” It sounds like he is so eager to know how digestion flows!  And so we are!

Now, the most exciting part! We had a simple activity so we could understand digestion better. We used a paper towel tube for the esophagus and a Ziploc bag for our stomach. We took turns in putting a biscuit into the tube and squeezed it until it moved into the Ziploc bag!

Up close, we could see how an animal-shaped biscuit was broken down into small pieces as they passed through the esophagus,. Then when it reached the stomach (bag), water was added to represent the acid that helps break down our food into much smaller pieces. After that, the food goes into our small intestine and then into our large intestine which is almost the last stop on the digestive tract. And we now know that we have muscles in our mouth, esophagus and stomach that help work in our digestion.

With the help of our teacher’s special apron, we had some ideas about our intestines. It is so exciting to somehow visualize these parts of our digestive system!

J’s face vividly shows how much we all were in awe when we saw this!  It is truly amazing to know how our body works like a machine!

As our food reaches the large intestine, it’s almost the time for our body to push out the waste that our body does not need.  We all guessed that the waste means our poo, so we all giggled and laughed!

As we were giggling, we learned that we would discuss the final phase or stop of the digestive system. We could almost guess what it would be! We are so sure it will be an exciting and giggling discussion again! We could hardly wait!

After our park time, we read The Rainbow Fish and talked about how sharing with our friends can make us happy. We want to be kind to everyone because we know that will make everyone happy! And then taught us a very nice song about good manners! We will continue to practice this song:)

Lots of love,

Flowers Class Children