My Amazing Body 3-minute video · ages 4-8 · free coloring page
What are bones for?
What is a skeleton, and what are all those bones inside you doing?
3 min
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Free coloring page
The scene from the video as a coloring page, plus the three-sentence answer, the experiment, and a QR code back to this page. One sheet, US Letter, black and white.
The answer in three parts
Why?
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Job number one: holding you up!
Without bones, you would flop like a wiggly noodle. Your skeleton is like the frame of a house.
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Job number two: keeping you safe.
Your skull is a hard helmet around your brain. And your ribs are like a cage that guards your heart and lungs.
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Job number three: helping you move.
Your muscles hold on to your bones and pull them. Where two bones meet, there is a joint, so you can bend, twist, and wave.
For grown-ups: A grown-up has about 206 bones. A baby has even more, nearly 300, and some of them join together to make bigger, stronger bones. Bones are alive: blood flows through them, they grow as you grow, and the soft marrow inside some bones is like a factory that makes new blood every day. If a bone breaks, a doctor puts on a cast to hold it still, and in a few weeks it grows back together.
Foods for strong bones
- Milk
- Yogurt
- Cheese
- Leafy greens
These foods have calcium. And run, jump, and play every day. Bones love to move!
A tiny experiment
Try it!
Find your bones
You need: just your hands
- Gently press your fingers along your arm and your knuckles.
- Can you feel the hard bones under your skin?
- Now bend your fingers. How many joints can you find in one finger?
What happened? A joint is where two bones meet. That is where your finger bends.
Did you know?
More than half of all your bones are in your hands and feet! That's why your fingers and toes can move in so many ways.
Some bones are tiny, like the little bones deep inside your ear. They are smaller than a grain of rice.
Your guide in this video
I'm Bonnie, a little bone. Did you know you have a whole skeleton inside you, right now?
Bonnie is a little cream-white cartoon bone. Like your bones, Bonnie loves to move!
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