Gurgles and Growls: Learning About Your Stomach

When we eat food, what happens to it? 

Gurgles and Growls: Learning About Your Stomach by Pamela Hill Nettleton and illustrated by Becky Shipe answers that very question! This book is a great introduction to the digestive system for our younger elementary school friends. It uses simple language to break down a complicated system and is a good way to kick off a unit about the human body!

The gist:

Gurgles and Growls: Learning About Your Stomach is a great introduction to the digestive system. It narrates how the digestive system turns food into energy and contains simple but informative illustrations that help students conceptualize what exactly is going on in their stomaches.

The book finishes by talking about the importance of eating fruits and vegetables. This can be used as a great segue to talk about nutrition with your students! With obesity continually on the rise around the world, it's a good idea to talk to students about the importance of eating healthy.

My favorite part:

This book uses very simple language and has informative illustrations, which means it's a great resource for Kindergarten and 1st grade! However, 2nd grade and up probably requires a book that uses more technical terms and goes deeper into the digestive system.

What you can do: 

The human body is an incredible topic to tackle as a class because there's so much to learn and so many fun activities out there to facilitate learning! The book suggests some additional resources, including other books and the Fact Hound website. The website links to three other websites that provide ample information on the digestive system and how to talk about it with students. Click here to access the Fact Hound website.

The book also suggests one activity, where students get to "be" a stomach by putting food in a plastic baggie and mashing it up. This lesson plans walks through a similar activity very thoroughly and provides some good questions to get your students thinking.

Speaking of activities, click here to view an incredible blog with lots of different activities that incorporate the digestive system! There's a suggested math activity, a science experiment, and even a fun song you can teach your students! I'm so happy that I stumbled upon this blog and will definitely be checking in out again for other lesson plan ideas!

Happy Reading!