Human Body for Year 5 & 6 | Circulatory System & Nutrition

The digestive system breaks down food so your body can use it for energy, growth and repair.

When you eat, food travels through your body in this order:

Mouth – Your teeth chew the food into smaller pieces, and saliva begins to break it down.
Oesophagus – A tube that carries food from your mouth to your stomach.
Stomach – Food is mixed and churned with acids to break it down further.
Small intestine – Nutrients from the food pass into the bloodstream.
Large intestine – Water is absorbed, and waste is prepared to leave the body.

This whole journey can take many hours!

Skeletons and movement

Your body is like a clever machine, and inside, there’s a strong frame called the skeleton.

Your bones make up your skeleton. They give your body shape and support, helping you to stand, sit and move. Without bones, you’d be like jelly!

Bones also protect important organs in your body. Some bones have very special jobs:

Skull – Protects your brain like a hard helmet.
Rib cage – Protects your heart and lungs.
Spine – Supports your body and helps you bend and twist.

An adult human has 206 bones in their body.

Muscles and movement

Bones cannot move on their own. They need muscles. Muscles are stretchy tissues that pull on bones to make them move. Muscles work together like a team. When a muscle pulls (contracts), the bone moves. That’s how bend and straighten your arms and legs. Muscles help us walk, jump, run and even smile!

Taking care of your bones and muscles by eating well, moving often, and staying active helps your body stay strong and healthy.

Muscles at work

Try bending your arm.
Can you feel the muscle in your upper arm tighten?
Try holding a can of beans in your hand and bending your arm again.
Can you feel the muscle working a bit harder?

That muscle is pulling on your bones to move your arm.

Other important organs

Your body also has important organs that keep you alive and healthy.

Brain – The control centre of your body. It helps you think, feel, move and remember. It also controls breathing and blinking without you even thinking about it.

Heart – A strong muscle that pumps blood around your body. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to where they are needed.

Lungs – You have two lungs in your chest. They take oxygen from the air you breathe in and move it into your blood. They also remove carbon dioxide when you breathe out.

Stomach – Helps digest food by breaking it into tiny pieces your body can use for energy.

Why do we need air?

We breathe in air every second — even when we are asleep!

Air contains a gas called oxygen. Our lungs take in oxygen and pass it into the bloodstream. The blood then carries oxygen all around the body to our muscles, brain and organs.

Oxygen helps our cells release energy from the food we eat. Without oxygen, our bodies could not work properly, and we would not be able to survive.

That’s why breathing is so important — we do it automatically without even thinking about it!

Why do we need water?

Water is extremely important. In fact, more than half of your body is made of water.

We need water to:

Move nutrients around the body
Control body temperature (so we do not overheat)
Help our brain work properly
Keep us alert and focused
Remove waste from the body

If we do not drink enough water, we can become dehydrated. When this happens, we might feel:

Tired
Grumpy
Dizzy
Too hot
Unable to concentrate

Drinking water regularly throughout the day helps keep your body working at its best.

How much water do I need?

Age	Glasses of water
5-8 years old	5 glasses
9-12 years old	7 glasses
13+ years old	8-10 glasses

Why do we need exercise?

Exercise keeps your body strong and healthy.

When you exercise, your heart beats faster. This is a good sign — it means your heart and lungs are working hard and becoming stronger. Strong muscles, a healthy heart and powerful lungs help you stay active and energetic.

Exercise also:

Improves concentration
Helps you sleep better
Boosts your mood
Gives you more energy

Have you ever run around so much that you could feel your heart beating quickly afterwards? That means your heart has had a good workout!

How much exercise do I need?

Children aged 5–8 should aim to do at least one hour of physical activity each day.

You know you are working hard enough if:

Your heart is beating faster
You feel warm
You may start to sweat

Activities can include running, cycling, dancing, swimming or playing sports. It all counts!

Keeping active every day helps keep your body in tip-top condition.

Nutrition and a balanced diet

To keep our bodies working properly, it is important to live a healthy lifestyle. One of the best ways to do this is by eating a balanced diet and drinking plenty of water. Our bodies cannot make their own food like plants can. We need to eat food to get nutrients, substances that give us energy, help us grow and keep our bodies healthy. A balanced diet means eating the right amounts of different types of food.

There are five main food groups. Each group has an important job:

Fruit and vegetables – These are full of vitamins and minerals that help us stay healthy and fight illness.
Carbohydrates – Foods like bread, rice, pasta and potatoes give us energy to move, learn and play.
Proteins – Meat, fish, eggs, beans and nuts help our bodies grow and repair themselves.
Dairy – Milk, cheese and yoghurt help keep our bones and teeth strong because they contain calcium.
Fats and sugars – These give us energy, but we only need a small amount. Too much sugar can harm our teeth and affect our health.

Eating a mix of these foods helps our bodies stay healthy, active, and ready to learn!

What is a balanced diet?
The human body needs a balanced diet to work properly.

DK Find out!
What you need in a balanced diet, dairy, fats & sugars, fruit & vegetables.

DK Find out!
What's in food? Learn about nutrients in the foods we eat.

What are fruit and vegetables?

Fruit and vegetables gives us our vitamins and minerals. The vitamins and minerals do all sorts of things for our bodies. They help build strong bones and teeth, keep our body fighting off germs and help heal wounds.

Fruits include: apple, banana, orange, grapes, strawberries
Vegetables include: carrots, broccoli, peas, cucumber, sweetcorn

One third of what we eat a day should be fruit and vegetables. A great way to measure this is to eat 5 handfuls of fruit or vegetables. Try it. How many handfuls of fruit and vegetables are you eating every day?

Fruit & Veg colouring in
Fruit & Veg colouring in sheets and guessing game for you to print and play

What are carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates are foods that give us energy. The type of foods that give us energy are bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, cereals, cakes and biscuits.

Starches and sugars

Carbohydrates are split into two groups, starches and sugars. Starches are the ones that really give us our energy. Bread, potatoes, pasta, rice and cereals. One third of what we eat every day should be of starchy foods.

Biscuits and cakes are carbohydrates but they contain sugars. Your body only needs very little of these.

What are carbohydrates?
Bread, cereals, pasta, rice, and sweet foods are mostley carbohydrates.

What are proteins?

Our body needs proteins to grow and repair itself. Proteins help protect you from getting ill and is what your muscles, organs, hair and skin are made of.

Some of the types of foods that give us protein are chicken, ham, beef and fish. If you do not eat meat then you can find protein in beans, nuts, seeds, eggs, lentils and beans.

What is protein?
Foods such as meat, fish, eggs, beans and nuts all contain protein.

Food facts
What foods are high in proteins? How do proteins work in our bodies?

What is dairy?

Dairy foods come from milk and are important for keeping our bodies strong and healthy. They give us calcium, which helps build strong bones and teeth. Dairy foods also contain protein, which helps our bodies grow and repair themselves.

Common dairy foods include milk, cheese, and yogurt. These can be eaten at breakfast, lunch, or as a snack. Some people drink plant-based alternatives like soya or oat milk – these can be healthy too if they have added calcium.

What are sugar and fats?

Sugar can be found in a lot of foods that we like the taste of but they are not necessarily good for us. Sweets, chocolate, honey, cakes and biscuits all contain too much sugar and we shouldn't eat too much of this everyday. Having too much sugar can be harmful to your teeth and cause tooth decay. Eating too much sugar can also cause you to put on weight which is bad for your health and can cause things like diabetes and heart disease.

Fats give our body energy that is stored as a fat layer under the skin to keep us warm. Too much fat will cause a bigger layer under the skin and will cause us to look bigger than we should be. Fats can also build up in your arteries, the tubes that carry your blood around your body. When this happens your brain and heart doesn't always get the amount a blood flowing that it needs and this can cause problems with your health.

Foods that have fats are butter, oil, cream, mayonnaise, ice cream, crisps, cakes and biscuits. In fact most food have some kind of fat. The here is a food label from a cereal box. Even though we know that cereal is a carbohydrate is still contains fat.

Saturated and unsaturated fats

It's good to have a little bit of fat in what you eat and unsaturated fat is the better to have. Saturated fat is not good for our bodies and you can find saturated fat in many foods such as butter, cheese, ice cream, biscuits and cakes. Check out the food label again. It has 6.0g of fat in this cereal. 1.3g of that is saturated fat. Check your food labels at home, how much saturated fat does your food have?

What is fat?
Nuts and dairy foods, such as butter and cheese contain fat.

Teeth and dental health

We use our teeth every day to bite, chew and help us speak clearly. Humans have different types of teeth, and each type has a special job.

Types of teeth

Incisors - These are the sharp teeth at the front of your mouth. They help you bite into food, like when you take a bite of an apple.
Canines - These are the pointed teeth next to your incisors — one in each corner of your mouth. They are used for tearing food.
Premolars and Molars - These are the larger teeth at the back of your mouth. They have flatter surfaces that help grind and crush food into smaller pieces so it is easier to swallow and digest.

All of these teeth work together to help your digestive system do its job properly.

Most children have 20 baby teeth, which are later replaced by 32 adult teeth.

Looking after your teeth

Brushing your teeth twice a day helps prevent tooth decay. Dentists recommend brushing for two minutes each time.

Too much sugar can cause a sticky layer called plaque to build up on your teeth. Plaque contains bacteria that turn sugar into acid. This acid can damage the enamel (the hard outer layer of your teeth) and cause cavities.

To keep your teeth healthy: