This resource contains instructions for a hands-on KS2 classroom activity that uses bananas and biscuits to teach students about the human digestive system.
You’ll construct a life-sized model that simulates each stage of digestion, from chewing food in the mouth to excreting waste. This reinforces pupils’ understanding of how the digestive organs function.
Digestive system KS2 learning objectives
- Identify parts of the digestive system
- Describe their function
- Describe what happens to food as it goes through the body
The digestive system is quite complex. However, it can be understood in fairly simple terms by KS2 students as long as you focus on the key points. The purpose of the digestive system is to:
- break down food
- extract nutrients we can use
- dispose of the rest
Some of the breaking down is done physically and some chemically.
Starter activity
Provide pupils with an outline of the body and ask them to draw and annotate what they think happens to food when they’ve eaten it.
Monitor carefully the developing ideas and select pupils to share their ideas. This might work well using a visualiser. Draw out the points that the digestive system has a number of stages to it and each has a particular function.
Now explain that pupils are going to make a model of the digestive system to show how it works.
Siemens Education helps STEM come to life via resources and games for the classroom. Find more curriculum-linked interactive games at siemens.co.uk/education. These KS2 digestive system resources support Siemens Eduation’s popular online Human Body Game.
