Teeth and eating

Objectives

1. Understand that different animals have different diets.
2. Know that animals have different kinds of teeth because they have different diets.

National Curriculum

Key Stage 2, Science, Sc2, 2a.

Resources

• Online activity: Teeth and eating (Science/Living things)
• Pictures of different animals and examples of their diet
• A rabbit and cat jawbone and teeth (or diagrams of them)
• Plasticine or other moulding material used to make models of different teeth

Teaching activities

Introduction
Display pictures of a number of different animals with different diets (e.g. cat, rabbit, shark, robin, cow). Ask children if all these animals eat the same food.

Display pictures of the food these animals eat (mice/small birds, lettuce/seeds, seals/fish, worms/grubs and grass/hay) and ask children to link the animals to their diet. Which animals only eat plants? Which only eat meat?.

Activity
Show the children plasticine models of pairs of upper and lower incisor teeth (thin edges joined together for cutting), canine teeth (pointy edges for tearing) and molar teeth (two flat edges for chewing and grinding). Only use scientific names of teeth for higher ability children.

Demonstrate action of model teeth working and ask children which teeth would be most useful for cutting grass (incisors), chewing grass (molars), tearing meat (canines), and chewing meat (molars).

Give children time in response partners to decide which kinds of teeth do plant-eaters need and which do meat-eaters need?

Tell the children that you are going to look at the jawbone and teeth of a cat and a rabbit and try to work out which is which just by looking at their teeth.

Ask response partners to think about: What kind of teeth can they see in each jaw? What would these teeth be useful for? Which do they think is the cat’s jawbone and which is the rabbit’s and why?

In pairs, children use the online activity to match up ‘dentures’ with animals and their diets.

Plenary
On an interactive whiteboard, go through the online activity. Ask children how each set of dentures helps the animal eat their food.

Ask children to share further facts they have found out about different sets of teeth from the activity.

Extension

Children can work through the online quiz.

Homework

Ask children to find other plant-eating animals (herbivores) and what they eat, and other meat-eating animals (carnivores) and what they eat.