The last two weeks we’ve been studying the Digestive System using the Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy & Physiology textbook from The Young Explorer Series which is published by Apologia Science.  Yesterday our co-op’s elementary science team provided an AMAZING hands-on learning activity for K through 6th grade kids.  Here are a few pictures from the day as well as parts of the class summary provided by one of the moms from the science team.

“Today was certainly a big day as the kids took a tour through a giant digestive tract. We can’t say thanks enough to Mrs. J and her husband for their time and effort getting our intestinal box maze set up! What a fantastic way to demonstrate the small and large intestines. Each
group went through the tract two times, half of the group taking a bite of food and then passing through the system to be digested, and the other half becoming intestinal villi taking nutrients from the food in the intestines. The kids had to answer questions and describe what was
going on as they passed through the system. The teachers had fun spraying saliva, bile, and pancreatic juices on the students as they came through. The kindergarten class was very literal with what was going on and we had to assure them that they were really not covered
with the mentioned fluids.”

While in the mouth and before passing into the esophagus the kids are squirted with saliva (shown below).

See the little girl on the outside of the esophagus above?  She’s demonstrating peristalsis by pushing down on the tube while one of the other kids is passing through :).

Above, you can see Nathan churning the “stomach full of nutrients” after he came out of the esophagus. 

Before entering the intestines, (below), Grandma F sprayed the kids with bile and pancreatic juices. 

There were mixed reactions to this (LOL):

Below you can see the kids on the outside of the boxes.  There are little holes cut in boxes where the kids on the outside act as intestinal villi reaching inside the box to grab the nutrients from the food as it is passing through the intestines.  You can also see in the picture below the difference in the sizes of the boxes… some are the large intestines and some are the small 🙂

Here are a couple of kids coming out of the small intestine…she’s still smiling 🙂

Here Nathan’s coming out of the small intestine with the waste which was left over at the end of the journey….

And last, but not least, what’s a digestive system without a toilet? 

At the end of the day, our co-op has a Closing Session where any of the teams can give a demonstration of whatever they experienced that day.  One of this past Monday’s Closing Session activities was letting the BIG kids go through the digestive system.  They had a TON OF FUN!   Here’s what the teachers had to say about that (LOL):

The demonstration at the end of the day was
certainly a bit more active than our smaller class sessions. Perhaps it
was more demonstrative of how the digestive tract behaves with a virus. 😉

Stay tuned for more co-op adventures I hope to post in the near future!