A Journey Through Digestion: Interactive Word Wall

This weekend I decided to create a review game about the digestive system for my students from a poster someone made for me. Rather than just hanging the poster on the wall as one piece I decided to laminate it, cut out the organs and use it like a puzzle for the interactive word wall. Over the weekend I wrote out cards of all the structures, functions, processes, what food is called at different stages, and the mechanical and chemical processes. Then I laminated them and added magnetic tape on the back to make them stick to the blackboard.

Today, I gave each table two organs, and several different cards to place on the board. I asked for the puzzle pieces one by one until they made the digestive tract-they had to adjust and move things around until they got it right, this they did as a class.  After they read each function they explained which organ it matched until finally all the cards were on the board. 

Finally, students walked up to the interactive word wall and drew it in their journals. This was a very fun way to make sure that students knew the order of the organs, the shape of the organs, and the functions and processes in each organ. It was engaging and interactive. I modeled proper behavior and listening skills and students participated and took notes during the activity.

Tomorrow students are going to take what they learned today and create one of the organs (designated by table) and use it to demonstrate mechanical or physical digestion. Then explain the chemical processes that occur if any. (Yellow gunk for chyme etc.). For this activity students will use the Play-doh and other makerspace materials.

On Wednesday students are going to act out their organs function explaining what exactly is happening to the food. They will stand in a line and one by one act out the functions from the mouth to the anus. This will conclude our visual, auditory, and kinesthetic/tactile review of the Digestive System. I will write another blog post documenting the makerspace creations and skits later in the week.