animals including humans year 4 lesson 4 li: to understand the function of the human teeth

Animals including Humans

Year 4Lesson 4

LI: To understand the function of the human teeth.

Input

• Run your tongue along you teeth.• What do you feel?• Do all your teeth feel the same?

Why do we need teeth?

Animals need to teeth in order to cut, chew and break up the food they eat. This is an important part of digestion as it makes the food smaller so it can be swallowed where the nutrients will be absorbed into the bloodstream.

Two sets of teeth

Who has gaps in their mouth where a tooth has fallen out?

Humans do not have the same set of teeth for their whole life time. Humans have two sets of teeth in their life time. A baby grows the first set of teeth, called milk teeth. These fall out around between 5-12 years old. This makes way for the permanent teeth to grow through.

The reason we have two sets is because a full set of adult teeth would not fit inside a young child’s mouth.

Different types of teeth

Your teeth feel different, and look different from one another, because they have different jobs to do. • Incisors:• Canine:• Premolars:• Molars:

Incisors

These teeth are located at the front of the mouth. They are the sharpest teeth and are designed to cut the food.

Canine

These teeth are in the corners of your mouth because they grip, pierce and tear the food.

Premolars

These teeth are found just behind the canine teeth. They are more flat at the top that the canine teeth as their job is to crush the food.

MolarsThese teeth are

located at the very back of an adult’s mouth. They are bigger than the premolars and their job is to chew and grind the food into small pieces.

Different animal’s teeth

How do you think other animal’s teeth will differ from a humans?

Think about what food they might eat.

Different animal’s teeth

Carnivores and herbivores have different types of teeth to suit the different types of food they eat.• Carnivores have well developed canine

teeth in order to cut through the meat. • Herbivores have well developed molars for

grinding the grass and plant material.

Activity1. Identify the different teeth. 2. Fill in the blank worksheet.

Plenary

How do we keep our teeth healthy?

Why do we need to keep our teeth healthy?