The human skeleton

Your skeleton’s 3 main jobs:

1. Your skeleton gives you your shape. If you didn’t have a

skeleton, you would be a blob!

2. Your skeleton helps you to move. You could not run or swim without bones.

3. Bones protect other parts of your body.

Skeleton fact

• A baby is born with over 300 bones but some bones grow together so that all grown ups have 206 bones.

The longest, heaviest, and strongest bone in your body is your thigh bone, called your femur! It attaches at your hip and your knee!

• (The smallest bone is in your ear!)

Your kneecap is your patella

• On the front of the knee is the kneecap. Your kneecap is not connected directly to other bones. Muscles and tendons help keep your kneecap in place!

Your skull

• Knock on your skull and feel how hard it is. It is hard so it can protect your brain and eyes. The skull is made up of 28 bones.

• Muscles are attached to your skull to help you smile!

Muscles

• Muscles are attached to bones. Bones and muscles work as teams when you swing your arms and move your legs.

Ball and socket joints• Bones meet at joints.

• Make a fist and put your fist in your open hand. This is how a ball and socket joint works.

• Your shoulders and hips are ball and socket joints.

Hinge joints

• Hinge joints are like door hinges. Picture a door swinging open. Hinge joints allow bones like your elbows and knees to swing back and forth. Your knee locks when its straight and doesn’t bend backwards.

Broken bonesBones are tough, but they can break. Fortunately, broken bones can heal. Special cells help repair the bone. How fast a bone heals depends on the kind of break. If the broken ends fit together well, a bone may heal more quickly.

Your backbone

• Your backbone, or your spine, helps support your body. It is made up of bones called vertebrae.

Your ribcage

• You have 12 pairs of ribs that are curved bones.

• Your heart and lungs are protected by your ribcage.

Your arm bones• Your upper arm bone is called

your humerus.

• Your lower arm bones are the ulnaand radius

Hitting your “funny bone” usually isn’t funny at all. There is a nerve that runs over the ulna that makes hitting it painful!

Your hands and feet

• Your hands have 27 bones in each! Your hands and wrist are easy to control because they have so many movable bones.

Taking care of our bones

• Bones give us shape and allow us to move so taking care of our bones is important. The key to healthy bones is eating well and exercising.

• Our bodies need calcium to grow strong bones. Milk and broccoli are good sources of calcium.