Year 4 · Teeth, digestion and food chains
Teeth, digestion and food chains
Identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions
Lesson overview
What you'll learn in this lesson
Identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions
Key learning points
- • Four kinds of tooth
- • The journey of a mouthful
- • Teeth tell you about diet
- • Food chains
This lesson at a glance
- 20 minutes
- 18 parts to scroll through
- 4 quick checks
- No marked quiz yet
- Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses
Words to know
Scroll down — the lesson carries on below
Watch & discover
Part 1 of 18
Watch first
Teeth, digestion and food chains
Follow energy as it passes from plants to animals along a food chain.
Do it for real
The practicals below use what the film shows, with a full method you can follow at home.
In a nutshell
Identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions
What you already know
Part 2 of 18
Before we start
What you already know
You know that animals need food to survive and grow.
Key words
Part 3 of 18
Key words
Words you'll need today
- incisor
- A flat front tooth for biting and cutting.
- molar
- A wide back tooth for grinding food.
- producer
- A plant that makes its own food using sunlight.
Learning cycle
Part 4 of 18
Learning cycle 1 of 2
Part 1 — Teeth and digestion
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 5 of 18
Learn
Four kinds of tooth
Incisors are the flat front teeth that bite into an apple. Canines are the pointier ones beside them, for gripping and tearing. Premolars and molars are the wide teeth at the back that grind food into a mush your body can use. Adults have 32 teeth; children are still swapping over from 20 milk teeth.
Explore the idea
Part 6 of 18
Learn
The journey of a mouthful
Teeth and saliva start the job in the mouth. Food travels down the oesophagus to the stomach, which churns it with acid. In the small intestine the useful goodness passes into your blood. The large intestine takes back water, and what is left leaves as waste.
Quick check
Part 7 of 18
Quick check
Which tooth grinds food?
Reset break
Part 8 of 18
Pause
That's sitting 1 of 2 done
Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.
Quick check
Part 9 of 18
Quick check
Where does most goodness pass into the blood?
Learning cycle
Part 10 of 18
Learning cycle 2 of 2
Part 2 — Food chains
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 11 of 18
Learn
Teeth tell you about diet
A sheep has broad molars and no big canines because it grinds grass. A fox has long canines for gripping meat. If you find a skull with huge flat molars, you are almost certainly looking at a herbivore.
Explore the idea
Part 12 of 18
Learn
Food chains
A food chain always starts with a producer — a plant, because it makes its own food from sunlight. Grass → rabbit → fox. The arrows mean 'is eaten by', so they point the way the energy travels. The rabbit is prey; the fox is a predator.
Quick check
Part 13 of 18
Quick check
In grass → rabbit → fox, the producer is...
Quick check
Part 14 of 18
Quick check
What does the arrow mean?
Common mix-ups
Part 15 of 18
Common mix-ups
Things people often get wrong
- Thinking arrows in a food chain point at what an animal eats — they point the other way.
- Calling canines 'the sharp ones at the back'.
- Thinking food is absorbed in the stomach rather than the small intestine.
Challenge round
Part 16 of 18
Game · Sort it
Which of these are true?
Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.
True
Not true
Mastery quiz
Part 17 of 18
No quiz for this one
This lesson has no marked quiz attached yet.
Lesson round-up
Part 18 of 18
Lesson round-up
Ready when you are
Quiz score
Not sat
Games
Not played
Points this lesson
0
Best run
0 in a row
Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?
Ask LunaDo the work
Your written work for this lesson
This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.
Why the school greenhouse failed
A science club grew tomato plants in the school greenhouse. In June the plants grew well: leaves were dark green and the fruit set quickly. In July the club went away for two weeks and left the greenhouse door shut. When they came back, the leaves were curled and pale and most of the fruit had dropped.
The club had a data logger inside. It showed the temperature reached 46 °C on several afternoons and the soil moisture fell close to zero. The club knew photosynthesis needs light, water and carbon dioxide, and that enzymes in a plant work best in a narrow range of temperature. Above that range the enzymes stop working properly.
The club repeated the summer with the door propped open and a water bottle drip on each pot. Temperature peaked at 31 °C and the plants survived.
Written for Good Learning Co.
Reading questions
- Name the variable the club changed the second time, and one variable they kept the same.
- Explain, using the words photosynthesis and enzymes, why the plants were damaged in July.
- Write a conclusion for the club's report, saying how far the evidence supports it.
Method and results
WritingWrite the aim, what you changed, what you measured and what you kept the same, then record your results in a table.
1 page + results table
Conclusion
WritingExplain what your results show and why, using the scientific words from the lesson. Say how you know you can trust them.
6–8 sentences
Labelled diagram
DiagramDraw the apparatus or the process in pencil, label it fully, and photograph it.
1 labelled diagram
Reading and notes
ReadingRead the lesson text again and write the key ideas in your own words.
Half a page of notes
Saved as you type.
Part 1 of 18 · Watch & discover