December is my favourite month because I not only get to consolidate my resources, but also spend the crucial time needed to revise pivotal Science concepts for my boy.

I’m seriously in love with PCF Sparkletots’ brand of education. I didn’t even know the Chinese terms for the various organs of the digestive system - and I am the kind to ace Chinese exams. The cardboard cutout of the digestive system further sealed my appreciation. So much effort invested into ensuring that they understand the process. I actually “stole” the idea and made a similar version of the respiratory system for my elementary school students.

Anyway, potential pitfalls to avoid for your preschooler:

• ensure that he knows how to name the organs in order
• correct him if he mentions gullet as garlic mistakenly
• correct him if he calls the 大肠 as big intestine (an understandable mistake since he probably translated it from Chinese). They need to remember that it’s large intestine.

To advance him to the next level, consider imparting:

• 3 out of 5 organs are involved in digestion: mouth, stomach & small intestine
• Out of these 3 organs, the small intestine digests food the most. Followed by the stomach, and the mouth ranks last.
• the teeth don’t digest food but help in digestion by breaking the food into smaller pieces. This increases the exposed surface area for digestive juices to act on the food particles.
• the mouth contains saliva which has digestive juices
• the tongue helps to mix the food with saliva and rolls food into small balls so that the food can be swallowed easily.

Okay this should be enough exposure for a preschooler.