Bones

If you count the bones from the skull at the top of your body to the bones in your toes, you will find that you have two hundred and six (206) bones in your body. Bones are very useful. They help us do a lot of things.

Bones protect your body. Your skull protects your brain. You have twelve (12) pairs of ribs around the middle of your body to protect your heart, lungs, and other organs.

Bones support the body and help us move. Hip bones and leg bones let us stand up. We can walk and sit up straight because we have bones.

Inside some of the bones is a soft material called bone marrow. Blood cells are made here. Blood cells are needed for healthy blood. Some blood diseases can be cured with bone marrow transplants. In a transplant, bone marrow is taken from a healthy person and injected with a long needle into the person with the blood disease.

Bones also help us hear sounds. This is the job of the smallest bone in your body. It is called the stirrup bone. It is in your ear.

There are many different shapes and sizes of bones in your body. The femur in your thigh (the top part of your leg) is a long straight bone. If you touch your knee, you can feel your patella. It is a little flat circular bone that looks like a coin.

Vocabulary help:

• circular (adj) - a circle shape; round
• coin (noun) - metal money, like quarters, dimes and nickels.
• cured (noun) - past tense of to cure; to make healthy again.
• disease (noun) - sickness or illness.
• healthy (adj) - If you are healthy, then you are not sick.
• heart (noun) - The heart pumps your blood around your body.
• inside (preposition) - the inner part; the opposite of outside
• hip (noun) - Your hip is at the top of your leg. It is where your leg attaches
• to your body.
• knee (noun) - The knee is where you bend your leg.
• lungs (noun) - When you breathe, the air goes in and out of your lungs.
• organs (noun) - the different parts of your body such as your heart and lungs.
• protect (verb) - to keep safe from danger or harm
• skull (noun) - the large bone in your head
• straight (adj) - not curved or bent
• support (verb) - holds the weight of something,
• thigh (noun) - the top part of your leg
• toes (noun) - most people have 5 toes on each foot.