My Science School

Have you ever noticed how quickly your feelings can change? One day you might feel happy because you made a new friend. The next day you might feel sad because your friend seems to like someone else better.

Understanding how and why your feelings change is part of growing up. Sometimes feelings can be very confusing.

Not all feelings are good, but it is still okay to have them. It is also okay to let people know how are you feel – and why you feel that way. But it is not okay to do whatever your feelings make you feel like doing. It is not okay to hit someone or call someone a name because you are angry.

You tell people how you are feeling in many ways. You tell them with your words, your face, and what you do with your body. When you are angry you might want to frown, make a fist, or yell. But you might find it more helpful to talk.

If your feelings upset you, talk to someone you trust. You will learn that everyone feels the same way you do, at some time or another.

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As you grow, you think and wonder. You think of questions, and you try to find the answers. You might wonder why it does not hurt to cut your hair. Why do you yawn? What, exactly, do your fingerprints look like?

You search for the answers to these questions by using your eyes, reading books, using the computer, or asking people. Believe it or not, when you do this searching, you are doing what scientists do.

You find out from looking through a magnifying glass what your fingerprints look like. You find out from reading an encyclopedia that cutting your hair does not hurt because there are no nerves in your hair. You feel pain only where there are nerves. You find out from asking your dad that you yawn because you are tired. The gulps of air you take in as you yawn bring extra oxygen into your body and make you feel more awake.

Some things are fun to think about. Some are confusing. You might wonder why you were born. What does being alive mean, and why do people die? You might ask your parents, teacher, or a friend. Try to find answers together.

The more you learn, the more you will want to know!

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The first time you went to school, you did not know what to expect. There were so many new faces. You may have been a little scared. Soon you learned things and made friends.

The first day of any new school year is sometimes like that very first day. It’s exciting. You wake up early in the morning. You eat breakfast quickly. You gather up your new school supplies. You do not want to be late.

Lots of questions race through your mind. What will your new teacher and classroom be like? Where will you sit? What new things will you learn?

Maybe you have not seen your school friends all summer. There will be a lot to talk about. There might be new children in the classroom-new friends. Maybe you will be the new child in the classroom. If so, you might be a little scared or shy. Will the other children like the things you like? What if you get lost in the school? These are normal feelings.

A new school year is always a little strange at first. Soon everything will become friendly and familiar. In time, you will feel right at home.

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At first your world was small. It was only as big as your mother’s or father’s arms. You quickly learn to recognise your mother’s and father’s faces. You liked to be close to them.

Soon your world grew bigger. Your home and all the things in it were part of your world. You learned to crawl, so you moved around and explored your growing world.

As you grew bigger, your world grew bigger too. Your parents took you to new places – parks, shops, restaurants, and places to play. You have watched and listened to learn more about these places. You met new people. You met other people in your family, family friends, other children, and babysitters.

As you grow older, your world continues to grow. It grows to include your school, other people’s homes, playing fields, and swimming pools. Every time you go somewhere new, you will add to your ever-growing world.

Think of all the different places you have been today - for example, school, the shops, the doctor’s surgery, and home. Ask an adult to help you make a list of these places. Now draw a picture of each place. Ask an adult to help you write a sentence or two about your drawings. Next time, think of all the places you have been in a week.

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Everywhere you look, families are different. Some children live with their birth parents, who are the mother and father to whom they were born. Some children are adopted. Their mother and father chose them to be part of their family.

Other children live with their mother and stepfather. Or maybe they live with their father and stepmother. In many such families, brothers and sisters from one family live with brothers and sisters from another family.

Many children live with just a mother or just their father. Other children live with your grandmother or grandfather, or with both grandparents.

And still others live with another relative, such as an aunt or uncle.

No matter what kind of family you have and no matter who you live with, you are part of a family. And all families work in the same way. The people in a family do a lot for each other. They stick up for one another. They are happy, sad, and angry with one another. They work and play together. They share things and responsibilities. What is your family like?

The people who live with you are your family. There are other people who are part of your family also, but they may not live with you. They are your relatives.

Some families have many brothers and sisters. Other families have only one or two. Still other families have no brothers or sisters at all.

All families have grandparents. One of your grandmas is your father‘s mother, and one of your grandmas is your mother’s mother. One of your grandpas is your mother‘s father, and one of your grandpas is your father‘s father.

You may have aunts and uncles, too. Some aunts are your mother’s sisters, and some are your father’s sisters. Some uncles are your father’s brothers, and some are your mother’s brothers.

Your aunts and uncles may have husbands and wives. They are your uncles and aunts too. Some of your aunts and uncles may have children. These children are your cousins.

All families are different. Who is in your family? Who are your relatives?

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You are always growing. It is the easiest thing you do. It just happens. You cannot see yourself grow. You may not seem to be much taller today than you were last year, but the clothes you wore last year are too small for you now. So you know you have grown.

How does your body grow?

Each day the cells in your body grow and divide. Each day your muscles have more cells in them. Your bones have more cells in them too. So each day they grow a little bigger.

Place a growth chart on a wall somewhere in your home. On each birthday, mark your height on the chart. As the years go by, you will be able to see how much you have grown.

You may wonder why you do not keep on growing and never stop. One reason is that while your body makes new cells, other cells wear out. But a more important reason has to do with tiny organs called glands. Glands make special chemicals that your body uses.

You have two kinds of glands. Some glands make liquids such as sweat, tears, and saliva. Other glands make chemicals called hormones and put them into your blood. In your blood, hormones make things happen.

The pituitary glands puts growth hormone into your blood. The blood carries it to all of the body parts that need to grow.

Babies grow very fast because their bodies make new cells a lot faster than the others wear out. You grew most rapidly during your first two years of life. Your growth will be slower until you are about 12. Then your body will start to grow rapidly again. Some people call this a “growth spurt”.

Before the growth spurt begins, boys and girls are almost the same height. Girls begin their growth spurt earlier than boys, but boys usually grow more. So they tend to be taller when the growth spurt ends.

One day, your glands will tell your body to stop growing. Then you will not grow any taller.

Babies are measured in length, not height. This is because they can’t stand up to be measured. When you were born, your head made up about a quarter of your body‘s length. By the time you finish growing, it will only make up about an eighth of your height.

When someone measures you, stand straight against a wall and get a helper to mark a line at the top of your head. Unless you stand against a growth chart, use a tape measure to measure from the floor to the line your helper marks. At least once each year, have your growth measured. Then write down your height, the date, and your age. It’s fun to see how much you have grown from year to year or more often.

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Have you ever held a tiny baby? Have you wondered why babies are so much softer than you?

One reason babies are softer is that their bones have not hardened yet. When they are born, babies have more bones than an adult and a lot of cartilage. But, their bone cells work all the time to become bigger and harder. Some even grow together. In fact, as babies grow, most of their cartilage turns into bone, except for parts of the nose, ears, and ribs. Fully grown adults have about 206 bones.

When doctors want to check how a child’s bones are growing, they make take x-rays of the wrists. Some children’s wrist bones grow quickly. Others grow more slowly. The important thing is that the bones are growing in a healthy way. If your wrist bones look healthy on an x-ray, then all the other bones in your body are probably growing the way they should, too.

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Have you ever noticed how members of a family look alike? Do your friends look like their parents? Do you look like anyone in particular?

Parents pass along many things to their children when their eggs and sperm cells come together. The eggs contain tiny things called genes. The sperm cells contain genes too. Each gene is like an order. Some genes are an order for height. Others are an order for hair colour. There are thousands of these orders. All together they tell a body how to grow into a special, one-of-a-kind person.

The things people do every day also make them who they are. For example, the things people eat have something to do with how tall or how big their bodies will be.

So what about you? Who will you look like? Some of your genes came from your father, so you will look a little like him. Some genes came from your mother, so you will look a little like her. Your parents got their genes from their parents, so you will look a little like your grandparents too. Mostly, you will look at exactly like YOU.

Have you ever seen a pair of sisters or brothers who look exactly alike? Two sisters or two brothers who look exactly alike are called identical twins. But not all twins look alike. Twins that don’t are called fraternal twins.

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A baby is called a newborn for about a month after birth. A newborn baby spends most of the time sleeping. The head makes up about a quarter of a newborn baby. Look at baby pictures of people in your family. Can you tell how big a baby’s head is compared to the rest of the body?

Most things newborn babies do just happen. They do not need to think about doing them. They can suck, swallow, move their arms and legs, and cry. But they cannot sit up, crawl, or walk yet. Newborn babies can’t even hold their heads up. Their neck muscles are not strong enough.

Newborn babies can tell when it is dark or light, and they can see things in front of them. They can also hear, and they quickly learn to recognise their parent’s voice.

During the first year of life, babies change in many ways. They learn to hold up their heads. They learn to roll over, sit, crawl, and stand. Their bodies become much bigger and stronger.

If you have a baby pictures of yourself, take a look at them. How have you changed?

Crying is the beginning of language for a person. It is the only way newborn babies can tell people how they feel. They cry to let people know they are hungry, tired, or need a nappy change.

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When you were ready to be born, your mother felt some aches around her belly. She knew what the aches meant. You were ready to be born! Her mother muscles were working to push you out.

The muscles kept working until, finally, your mother felt a pushing. The pushing got quicker and stronger. At last you probably were pushed out of her body – head first - through her vagina.

After you were born, your mother held you close. The cord that joined you to your mother was cut, because you did not need it anymore.

After a short visit with your mother, lots of new things may have happened to you. Nurses check newborn babies to make sure they are healthy. They weigh, measure, bathe, and dress new babies do. Most babies weigh about 3.4 kg when they are born. In a hospital, nurses put name tags on the wrists or ankles of newborn babies and sometimes put their fingerprints and footprints on paper.

When you were all checked over, you were handed back to your family.

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You had a lot of growing to do before you were ready to be born. The egg and the sperm that had joined together needed a safe, warm place in which to grow. That place was inside your mother‘s body.

As you grew, parts of your mother’s body became larger to make a room for you. You were safe and warm there, and you were fed through a cord called and umbilical cord.

The umbilical cord joined you to your mother. Blood flowed through the cord. The blood carried nutrients from your mother’s body to your body. The place where cord was attached to your body is now your navel, or bellybutton.

As you grew, you begin to move around. You moved your arms. You kicked your legs. Your mother could feel you moving and growing larger. For about nine months, you grew and changed shape. Then you were ready to come into the world.

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Today you are a child. One day, you will be a grown-up. As you grow to become an adult, you will not notice how you change from day to day. But you will notice the changes over years, months, or sometimes even weeks. Sometimes, you will notice when you try on clothes or shoes. Things that used to fit you may seem too small. You may also notice when you measure or weigh yourself. Overtime, you will see that you have grown taller or heavier.

You especially will notice how you have grown when you look at old pictures of yourself. You will see that changes have taken place in your face and your body. You will look bigger, stronger, and older than you once did.

Before you were born

Before you were born, you were warm and safe inside your mother’s body. How did you get there?

Inside your mother was a special kind of cell called an egg. It was smaller than a grain of sand, smaller than the tiniest dot you can make with your pencil.

Inside your father was another special cell called a sperm. It was even smaller than the egg, and it look like a bit like a dead pool.

To make you, the sperm cell and the egg cell came together inside your mother‘s body. They joined and became one cell. When that happened, a new life began – your life.

Soon that cell began to divide. It divided into two cells.  The two cells divided into four. The four cells divided into eight. The tiny cells stayed together and continued to divide.

At first, all the cells seemed to be alike. Then, each cell began to do its own job. Some cells became skin cells. Others became bones cells or nerve cells or brain cells.

This is how you grew before you were born.

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Everything has a “feel” to it. You know how things feel because you have nerves over every inch of your body. When something touches you, even lightly, it presses one or more nerves in your skin. The nerves carry a message to your brain, and your brain tells you how the thing feels.

Each nerve in your skin has a certain job. You have nerves for pressure, heat, cold, and pain. If you scrape your leg, the nerves for pain tell your brain, “That hurts!”

Some parts of your body are more sensitive to touch than others. For example, your tongue and finger tips are very sensitive. In your more sensitive areas, nerves are closer together than they are in less sensitive parts. The nerves in your fingers are very close together. That is why your fingers are so good at feeling things.

Your back is not as sensitive as your fingertips. That’s because the nerves in your back are further apart than the nerves in your fingers. See for yourself. Ask a friend to touch your back with two unsharpened pencils at the same time, first close together and then further apart. It will feel as if your friend is using only one pencil until the two pencils are quite far apart.

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Think of your most favourite food. Is it cheese? Is it peanut butter? Or is it chocolate ice cream with hot fudge? Now think of some foods you can’t stand to eat.

You know what you like to eat – and what you don’t like - because as soon as it’s in your mouth you can taste your food as it tumbles over your tongue.

The front, the back, and the edges of your tongue are covered with little bumps. Take a look at your tongue and you will see them. These bumps have groups of taste buds. Each taste bud has tiny nerves that send messages to your brain. Quick as a flash, your brain tells you what you are tasting.

Your sense of smell has a lot to do with how you taste things too. Think about the last time you had a cold. Do you remember trying to eat? You probably could not taste your food very well. That’s because you can’t smell what you are eating when your nose is stuffed up.

Different taste buds are experts in different tastes! That is why you may taste sweets best on the front and centre of your tongue. You taste salty food at the front left and right sides, and you taste buds foods further back along the sides. The taste buds for bitter foods are at the back of the tongue.

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You are walking with your family when you smell something awful. Suddenly, everyone is looking at their shoes. It’s your sister. She’s stepped in the stuff a dog left behind.

The world is filled with smells – good ones and bad ones. With every breath you take, your nose tells you something about the air around you.

Imagine your dad is barbecuing chicken. You know this because you can smell it. You can smell the chicken because tiny bits or chemicals from it are floating around in the air. These bits are much too small for you eyes to see, but your nose picks them up. They float into your nose through your nostrils. They enter your nostrils with the air you breathe.

After entering your nostrils, the air, with the tiny bits of chicken in it, moves up into a space at the top of your nose. This space is covered with nerves. The nerves receive the bits of chicken and send a message to your brain. Your brain tells you that chicken is cooking.

But you will have to ask your dad when it will be ready!

Smells travel into your nose and reach your nerves. The nerves send messages to your brain. Your brain tells you what the smells are.

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