NCERT Solutions for Class 5th The World Around Us Chapter 3 Chewing, and naming the types of teeth — Activity 5
Book page 50–51 Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
Activity 5: When you eat, try chewing each item properly till it breaks down into smaller pieces and then into mush. Which teeth did you use to cut and chew? Look at the diagram given on the next page and name them. “Types of teeth” — the labelled diagram printed on the next page of the book.
Answer
You use all four kinds of teeth, one after another: incisors to cut, canines to tear, premolars to crush and molars to grind.
How to do the activity:
Take one bite of something firm — a chapati, an apple, a guava or a piece of carrot.
Notice which teeth bite the piece off. Those are the flat, sharp front teeth.
Now move the piece to the back with your tongue and chew slowly.
Feel the wide, bumpy back teeth doing the grinding.
Keep chewing until the food becomes a soft mush before you swallow. Count your chews — try to reach twenty or thirty.
Now look at the “Types of teeth” diagram on page 51 and match each label to the tooth you felt working.
The diagram on page 51 shows an open mouth with the upper and lower jaws. In each jaw, from the front to the back, the labels read: Incisor in the middle at the front, Canine at each corner, then Premolar, and Molar at the very back — the same four names on both the left and the right side, in both jaws.
Name of the tooth
Where it is
What it looks like
Its job
Incisor
Right at the front, middle
Flat and chisel-like, with a sharp edge
To cut — biting into an apple or a roti
Canine
At the corners, one on each side, next to the incisors
Pointed, like a small cone
To tear — pulling apart tougher food such as a piece of sugarcane, chicken or a hard chapati
Premolar
Behind the canines
Broad top with two small bumps
To crush — breaking food into smaller bits
Molar
Right at the back of the jaw
Widest of all, with a bumpy, uneven top
To grind — mashing food into a paste, like two grinding stones
The four kinds of teeth, in the order in which they sit in the jaw — and the job each one does.
Finding #11: Different types of teeth have different uses.
Why we need four different kinds: One shape cannot do every job. A sharp edge cuts but cannot grind; a wide bumpy top grinds but cannot bite cleanly into an apple. Our teeth are a small set of tools, each shaped for its own work, and we use them one after another on every mouthful.
Did you know? A young child first grows a set of 20 milk teeth. These fall out one by one and are replaced by the permanent set of 32 teeth — 8 incisors, 4 canines, 8 premolars and 12 molars. If you are around ten years old, your mouth probably has some of each set right now.