Children’s Zone

Your heel bone (or calcaneus) forms the heel of one foot.

Skin, blood vessels, and nerves give the foot its shape and strength for every step you take, including the ability to control the foot’s many different movements.

Did you know?

Your heel bone receives up to four times your body weight with every step you take. Imagine that!

Feel the long bone on the inside of your leg below your knee.

That’s your shin bone (or tibia) – the main bone of your lower leg that runs along the inside of your leg, linking your knee to your foot.

The fibula is the smaller of the two long bones in your lower leg, and runs from your knee to the ankle along the outside of your lower leg. It supports your ankle.

Did you know?

Heard of shin splints – the pain around your shin bone? These are one of the most common causes of sport injuries and can happen when you don’t train properly.

Your kneecap (patella) is a thick, triangular shaped bone. It covers and protects your knee joint from injuries.

Your kneecap is one of three bones, along with the tibia (shin bone) and femur (thigh bone), that make up the knee joint.

Did you know?

Your knee joint is the largest joint in your whole body.

Your thigh bone is the biggest bone in your body.

It stretches from your pelvis to your knee, and helps to carry your body weight.

It’s the longest bone in the human body and is one of the strongest and heaviest.

Did you know?

When you’re a baby, you have more than 300 bones. But by the time you’re an adult you’ll only have 206 because some of your bones join together as you grow.

Place your hands on your hips and feel the hard bone. That’s your bowl-shaped pelvis, which protects part of your digestive, reproductive and bladder system.

Your pelvis is attached to three types of bones – part of your backbone and your hip bones. It supports your body weight helps you stand in an upright position.

Did you know?

The opening in the middle of the female pelvis is wider than in men. This is to allow enough room for a baby’s head to squeeze through during birth.

The sternum or breastbone is the flat bone at the front of your chest that is connected to some of your ribs, helping to form your rib cage.

The sternum acts like a shield to protect your heart and lungs from injury.

Did you know?

Your breast bone is about 15cm tall, covering about half the length of your ribs.

They sound like planets but they are not! Your elbow joint is made up of three arm bones.

One of these bones is called the radius, which is the bone that runs from the elbow to the thumb side of your wrist.

The other two bones that make up your arm joint are called the ulna and humerus. The ulna is the bone that sits next to your radius and runs from your elbow to the little-finger side of the wrist. The humerus is your upper arm joint.

Did you know?

The length from your elbow to your wrist is the same as the length of your foot!

Ever wondered where the name ‘funny bone’ came from?

Humerus is the proper name of your upper arm bone. This is the long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow.

Did you know?

The bones in your body are not white. They actually vary in colour from light brown to beige. Bones often appear whiter than they are because they have been cleaned.

Ever wondered how many ribs you have on your body? 

Shut your eyes and start counting and then see if you’ve guessed right.

You have 12 pairs of curved ribs which make up your ribcage, and they protect all the organs inside your chest. They are also attached to your spine (also called the backbone).

Did you know?

Violent coughing can fracture (break) a rib but this usually only affects adults or people with weak bones!

Your spine is like a daisy chain. It is made up of a long chain of 26 bones called vertebrae that run down the middle of your back. Without a spine to hold us upright our bodies would slump forwards.

If you view your spine sideways it is like an S-shaped, which makes it springy so it can cope with all the different movements and positions that you do above your legs.

Did you know?

Children have 33 vertebrae. As you grow, some of the vertebrae at the bottom of your spine will join together reducing the number to 26.

Your shoulder is made up of your shoulder blade (scapula) and your collarbone (clavicle).

The scapula, or shoulder blade, is a wide, flat bone that sits behind the rib cage. Together with the collarbone they form the part of your shoulder that connects your arm to your body.

The shoulder joint is very flexible and can move in lots of different directions. It is held together by lots of muscles. The shoulder joint is a ball-and-socket joint and is the most freely moving joint of the body – it can move in lots of different directions.

Did you know?

Your shoulder joint is able to move in more directions than any other joint in your body. Just swing your shoulder around in a full circle and see how easy it is!

Imagine trying to eat your food without teeth? Not an easy thing to do!

When you chew food your teeth have an important job. They help to crush the food to make it easier to swallow and digest in your body.

Every tooth has a root that attaches the tooth to your jawbone. The bit that we see is the crown, which is made up of hard, white enamel. Below the enamel are other bone-like bits that help to shape the tooth and give you feeling in your teeth.

What is a cavity?

If food gets stuck in your mouth for too long, bacteria in your mouth will start to feed on it. While doing this the bacteria can also attack the enamel on your tooth, giving you toothache and a hole in your tooth.

If this happens you will have to go to the dentist to get a filling. But, if you want to cut down on your trips to the dentist make sure you brush your teeth well twice a day, and cut down on eating sweet foods, which we all know can damage the enamel on our teeth.

So it’s important to keep your teeth clean!

Did you know?

The hard white enamel on the outside of your teeth is the hardest part of your body.

Tap your skull and feel how hard it is. That’s because it’s made up of bones fused (joined) together and has the very important job of protecting your brain.

Your skull also supports your face and mouth muscles.

When you are a baby your skull is very soft, and gets harder in the first few months of your life. The skull at the front of your head – that covers and protects your brain – is called the cranium. You also have fourteen bones at the front part of your skull that shape your whole face (including your nose bones and jaw).

The shape of our skull will decide what a person will look like. That’s why experts can use a skull of a dead person to help them find out what that person might have looked like when they were alive.

Did you know?

There are 30 different bones in the skull.

Ears are not just the squidgy flaps on each side of your head. They’re way more complicated! As well as allowing you to hear, they also help your balance, and stop you from falling over!

The parts you can see are called the outer ears. They’re like goal posts, collecting lots of sounds. These go into the middle ear. Here you’ll find your eardrum and three ossicles (tiny bones), plus the hammer. The hammer’s not the kind you’ll find in the garage at home. It’s actually another small bone – you’ve also got an anvil, incus and stirrup in each ear! This part of the ear transfers the vibrations caused by sounds into the deepest part of the ear.

The inner ear’s where the vibrations hit a curly tube, called the cochlea. This is filled with a special liquid that helps turn the vibrations into signals that your brain can understand.

Did you know?

Ear wax is made in the ear to protect the inside of the ear from dust and dirt. It’s smell stops creepy crawlies and insects from entering the ear!

The shape of your body comes from your bones. That’s because everything is held inside your skeleton, which is made up of them.

You won’t normally see the outside of a bone, but if you could, you’d see the cortical. This is the smooth but very strong part. Underneath you’ll find lots of layers of cancellous bone, which is like a hard sponge. In some bones, you’ll also find bone marrow. This is a thick, sticky substance that makes blood cells. Most of the calcium in your body is in your bones and teeth.

A joint is the area where two or more bones meet. Some of your joints will only bend in one direction, while others can move in lots of different directions such as your hip and shoulder joint.

Did you know?

There are more than 200 bones in your body, and your feet are made up of one quarter of all the bones in your body. Wow!

What’s the difference between your hair, your nails and the top layer of your skin?

Actually, not that much! They’re all made from the same stuff – keratin. They all work in different ways in helping to protect your body.

Hair helps to keep you warm, and stops things from getting in your eyes. Each hair is born in a tiny hole called a follicle.

Did you know?

Our eyes are always the same size but our ears and nose never stop growing!

You have nerves all over your body which have a very important job. They carry messages (signals) from your brain to all the different parts of your body, that allow us to do different things.

The whole network of nerves in your body is called your nervous system.

Your nervous system allows you to do many things – to store information, send out instructions to your body, have feelings, to think and breathe without thinking and much more.

They are busy working around the clock to allow your body to do lots of different things at the same time.

Did you know?

Nerve messages whizzing from our brain can travel as fast as 170 miles per hour!

Everyone’s got muscles – at least 600 of them!

Some are easy to find like your arm muscles – but others are hidden away, such as in your heart. Your muscles are all very flexible, which allows them to move about.

That’s because they all do something – some help your heart to work, others allow you to walk or run.

Muscles work by tightening and then relaxing.

For example, when the muscle in your upper arm (called the bicep) tightens, it pulls up your lower arm.

Others work all the time without you having to do any work, like your heart muscle which pumps blood around your body, and the muscles around your lungs that make you breathe.

Did you know?

The most important muscle in your body is your heart, which is in charge of pumping blood around your body.

You can’t actually see most of your body – it’s hidden behind skin. Skin protects everything inside you.

But, it also helps you to feel things, through your nervous system, which controls your senses. You have two main layers of skin.

The outer layer is called the epidermis, and is covered in dead cells. The layer below is where your new cells are and is called the dermis.

Another coating of protein called keratin covers the epidermis This is partly because your skin is so important.

It is strong, but it can damage very easily. When you cut yourself (ouch !) the damaged skin will repair itself. This can take a few days, if it’s a small cut. But, more serious cuts can take a lot longer to get better.

Did you know?

The color of your skin depends on how much melanin (dark coloring) you have in your skin. Pale-skinned people have less melanin in their skin than dark-skinned people. Melanin helps to protect our skin from sunburn.

Your nails, your hair and the top layer of your skin are all made from the same stuff – keratin. In their own ways, they all protect your body.

Nails are made up of dead cells, which is why it does not hurt when you cut your nails. They help to look after your fingers and toes. They are also very useful in other ways, such as helping you to pick up small things or scratch different parts of your body.

Did you know?

Our nails grow about a millimetre every ten days and grow faster in summer than in winter.

Blood is a red liquid that travels to all parts of your body. It works like a highway, carrying cells around the body.

It’s made up of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, which float in a liquid called plasma. Blood is important for a lot of reasons. It moves oxygen, nutrients and water around your body, and it helps you to fight infections. It also picks up the body’s waste products and carries them to the lungs and kidneys, where they are released from the body.

Blood is carried around in veins and arteries. These are tiny tubes that run throughout your body and are also called blood vessels. Not everyone has the same type of blood.

Did you know?

There are four main types of blood and each person will have a different type of blood in their body. These are called: A, B, AB and O.

Arteries and veins are the two main kinds of blood vessels that carry your blood around the body.

But, they both do different jobs. Your arteries carry blood filled with oxygen, and your veins carry blood filled with carbon dioxide and other waste materials that the body gets rid of. When we breathe in, our lungs fill with up with oxygen that keeps us alive. Then, when we breathe out, the air that we let out contains carbon dioxide, which we get rid of.

Did you know?

It takes about a minute for blood to travel all the way from your heart to your toes and back again!

Kidneys are shaped like beans and work in pairs but you can live (survive) with just the one.

They’re hidden away at the side of your body, just behind your rib cage.

Their job is to keep your blood clean, taking out any nasty waste, that is turned into a liquid called urine. Urine stays in your bladder and is released when you pass urine. Your kidneys also keep a check on your hormones. Hormones are a chemical that the body makes to help you to grow.

Did you know?

If one of your kidneys stops working the other kidney does all the work, which means that you can survive on one kidney!

Ever wanted to know what happens to your food when you pop it in your mouth?

Your body needs the food to give you energy and to help you grow. To do this it first needs to break the food down in a process called digestion.

When food enters your mouth your teeth break it up, then your tongue and spit (saliva) help to get the food ready for you to swallow it.

Then it’s taken down a tube called the oesophagus, which goes down to your stomach (tummy). Special juices (gastric juices) turn your food into a soft mixture.

This is taken into the small intestine, which isn’t actually that small. Although it’s only a couple of centimetres wide, it’s usually about seven metres long (the height of a house!)

The slft mixture is broken down even more by your pancreas and liver. That’s when it’s finally ready to be used by your body. The large intestine can then start to get rid of the bits of your food that your body doesn’t need through the rectum (bottom).

Did you know?

It can take hours or even days for food to work its way through your digestive system.

Your liver is one of the biggest and busiest organ in your body. It has hundreds of different jobs to do.

For example, it makes a substance called bile, which is important because it helps to break the food down in your body. It also helps to work out what your body needs from food – the nutrients – and if you’ve got too much of something, it can store it up!

Did you know?

Your liver is your biggest internal body organ and weighs 1.5kg (3.3 lb)!

Your heart is actually a fist-sized muscle, like your arm or leg muscles, but it does a very different job.

It doesn’t make you move, but it does move blood around your body. It has an important job because blood carries oxygen and nutrients around your body.

The heart works like a car engine, taking blood in on the right side and pumping it up to your lungs. The other side takes blood back from your lungs and around the rest of your body. Your heart is pumping all of the time – that’s when it beats, usually about once every second.

Did you know?

The human heart will pump 160 million litres of blood in an average lifetime!

Breathe deeply. Then you’ll really feel your lungs at work – they’re like two plastic bags that fill up with air when we breathe in. The air has oxygen in it that we need to stay alive.

The lungs help you to breath in new air, and get rid of old air when we breathe out. The air that we breathe out has carbon dioxide in it that we want to get rid of. Our lungs are one of the biggest organs you have and they’re very important – they even help you to talk and sing!

Did you know?

We breathe in (inhale) air about 20 times in a minute – that’s a lot of air!

Stick your tongue out and look at it in the mirror. Have you ever noticed all the tiny bumps that it is covered in?

These are called taste buds and they tell you whether your food is sour, sweet, salty or bitter.

That’s because there are taste buds in different parts of your tongue that can understand all the different tastes. But, that’s not the only job that your tongue does. It also helps us to form words, and is therefore a very important organ in helping us to speak.

Did you know?

Your tongue has around 10,000 taste buds that are sensitive to different tastes.

Your tonsils are like soldiers. They guard the opening into your throat and help to fight dangerous bacteria that enters into your mouth by air and food.

Tonsils are on both sides of your throat, at the back of your mouth, and are easy to see.

When you’re very young, your tonsils will grow, because you need extra help fighting infection but they shrink by the time you go to school, disappearing almost completely by the time you reach adulthood.

In some young adults and teens, the tonsils become infected many times with bacteria and viruses, which make them swell and become painful. Removing the tonsils stops this from happening.

Did you know?

As you get older your tonsils begin to shrink. They are then probably no longer as useful. This is in protecting against the germs that cause disease.

What allows us to smell? Our nose of course!

When you breathe in the smells in the air enter your nose and help you to taste things. The air is sucked up by the mucus (snot!) inside your nose.

Nerve endings in the back of your nose that work like smell detectors take in the smell, and together with the sense of taste, send nerve messages to your brain, allowing you to taste different flavors.

Not being able to smell is like having a cold, when your nose gets all blocked up, and you can’t really taste your food.

Did you know?

Our nose never stops growing until the day we die!

Have you ever looked at your eyes in the mirror? They look like squidgy white balls, but they’re a lot more complicated than that.

They work a lot like a video camera – taking in colours and shapes and then turning them into information that your brain can understand.

The most noticeable part of your eyes (the white bits!) is called the sclera. Its job is to protect your eyes (along with your eyelids). Look at them closely and you’ll see lots of tiny lines – these are blood vessels, taking blood into your eyes.

Under this, you’ll find (but won’t see) the cornea. It’s a clear substance that works like a lens, helping your eyes to focus. The iris (that’s the coloured part) allow enough light into your eyes. And, if it’s bright, they’ll stop too much coming in!

Did you know?

Our eyes are always the same size but our ears and nose never stop growing!

It’s a-maze-ing! Your brain looks like a grey, spongy maze. It may look a bit weird, but it’s actually more complicated than the most powerful computer.

The brain is the most important part of your nervous system. It controls your breathing, heart rate and digestion. It is also the area where we do our thinking, feeling and learning. The cerebrum is the main part of your brain that does the thinking, and is split into two – one half on each side of your head.

The left side of your brain looks after the right side of your body. And, the right side of your brain looks after the left side of your body! There are lots more parts to the brain. One of the most important parts is the brain stem. This connects the rest of your brain to your body, through your spinal cord, which runs through your neck and back.

Did you know?

Your brain can weigh more than a kilogram (three pounds), filling most of the area inside your head!