Your Skeleton

Your skeleton is a fascinating structure…

…imagine what your life would be like without it! We would just be blobs of blood and guts rolling down the street.

Here is some information about bones:

A human adult has about 206 bones. About 100 of those are just in your hands and feet. Babies are actually born with about 300 bones. You do not lose any bones as you get older, but many separate bones fuse together over time to form single bones. The bones that form your skull are just one example.

Our bones have many jobs, but one of their most important jobs is protection. Without the bones in our skull, our brain would be in big trouble. The brain relys on the bones in the skull to protect it. Bones also protect our heart and lungs by enclosing them in a rib cage.

Our bones are also responsible for making our blood! In the middle of our bones is a spongy substance called marrow. It is here that the body makes millions of new blood cells every day to send out to the rest of your body.

Your spine (backbone) is made up of 33 separate bones which allow us to move in many directions. The spine also protects the spinal cord which sends messages to from the brain to the rest of the body allowing us to walk, eat, draw, and do just about anything else that involves movement.

Bones are made mostly of a mineral called calcium. We get much of our calcium from drinking milk, and eating dairy products like cheese and even ice cream