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Inside your body is a skeleton made of bones. It holds you up. Without it you would be all floppy!

A grown-up's skeleton has 206 bones. That is a lot of bones!

Bones protect the soft parts inside you. Your skull protects your brain, and your ribs protect your heart and lungs.

Bones meet at joints, like your elbow and knee. Muscles pull on your bones to move them, so you can bend, run and jump.

Experiment: Find your bones, then try a stiff elbow

1. Gently press your head. Feel how hard it is? That is your skull.
2. Put your hands on your sides and breathe in. Can you feel your ribs? Now find your kneecap and your elbow.
3. Draw the bones you found on the body outline.
4. Now ask a friend to put a newspaper tube along the outside of your arm and hold it on loosely with soft tape, so your elbow cannot bend.
5. Try to touch your nose or your shoulder. Is it easy? Take the tube off and try again.

	Easy or hard?
Touch my nose (arm free)	Guess: will it be easy or hard with a stiff elbow?
Touch my nose (stiff elbow)	Guess: will it be easy or hard with a stiff elbow?
Touch my shoulder (stiff elbow)	Guess: will it be easy or hard with a stiff elbow?

Questions

1. Draw a skeleton. Draw the skull and the ribs.

   🍎

2. What do your ribs protect?

3. With a stiff elbow, touching my nose was…

   easy / hard

4. Name one food and one game that help your bones.

Sources for every fact on this sheet: echoesof.science/school/skeleton/sources/

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