The Skeleton

By: Amy, and Annmarie

Your skeleton started to grow before you were born. A baby's body has about 300 "soft" bones at birth. These eventually grow together to form the 206 bones that adults have. Some of a baby's bones are made of a special material called cartilage (say: car-til-ij). This cartilage is soft and flexible. 

During childhood, as you are growing, the cartilage grows and slowly hardens into bone, with help from calcium. The skeleton holds your body together and protects very important organs such as the brain, heart, lungs, and the liver. 

Without a skeleton, our bodies wouldn't have any support, and we would flop. 

The skull and the backbone, also give us our shape. Your backbone is made of many little bones called vertebrae.  It is also called your spine.

All our bones are linked together through different types of joints that allow us to make different movements.  Our bones are alive, because they grow and change like other parts of our body.

You have 64 bones in your hands and arms.

Facts

You have 200 joints in your body and 56 of them are in your hand.

My bones are hard, but they don't weigh very much!

A newborn baby has 350 bones , but an adult has 206.

Your bones are attached to your muscles.

The smallest bones are in your ear. The largest bone, the femur, is found in your thigh.

Brain Pop Movie

The Bone Zone

                                             Mr. Bones:  Demonstrates the assembly of skeletal system.  Requires Shockwave plug-in