My Science School

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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When you tap the top of your head do you feel something hard? When you tap the front of your leg, is it also hard? What you are feeling are bones.

Your body has bones of many shapes and sizes. Your leg bones are big and long. The bones of your fingers and toes are small and short. The bones of your skull, kneecaps, and shoulder blades are flat. Your rib bones are rounded. Some of your bones, such as those in your face, have very odd shapes.

Together, your bones make up the skeleton inside you. You have probably seen a skeleton before made of plastic. A human skeleton has about 206 separate bones. Your skeleton grows with you and gives shape to your body. If you did not have a skeleton, you would flop around like a rag doll.

Are you bending your arms or legs? Where your arm or leg is bending is where two or more bones meet. Bones come together at places called points. Some joints, like those in the skull, do not move. Other joints, like those in the legs, do move. You have joints in your arms, jaws, shoulders, hips, wrists, ankles, fingers, and toes. Your bones and joints work together to help you move around. They help you to kick a football, run, walk, and jump.

Bones are important for many reasons. First of all, they protect your organs. Organs are parts of you that work hard for your body. Your brain, eyes, heart, and lungs are organs. Your ribs make a cage around your heart, lungs, and other organs. They keep these important organs safe. Your skull is made up of many bones. They protect your brain.

Bones also helps make blood for your body. In the centre of some of your bones is a liquid called red bone marrow. Red bone marrow helps your body make blood.

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Cells are the building blocks of life. Every living thing is made of cells. Plants are made of cells. Animals and people are made of cells, too. Even you are made of cells. Without cells, life could not exist. You could not exist.

The human body is made of more than a thousand or even a million cells. It takes many billions of cells to make a body. These cells are so small that you need a microscope to see them.

Cells come in different shapes and sizes. They do different jobs too. There are blood cells, skin cells, and muscle cells.

The same kinds of cells gather and work together to make tissues. The different parts of your body are made of different tissues. Muscle cells come together to make muscles. Skin cells come together to make skin. Bones cells come together to make bones. Muscle, skin, and bone are different kinds of tissues.

Every minute, your body makes billions of new cells. Cells make new cells by growing and dividing in two. Then the two cells divide and become four cells. The four cells become eight cells. The dividing goes on and on. This is how your body grows.

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Press your finger on a window or a mirror. Can you see your fingerprint? No one in the world has fingerprints exactly like yours. Your footprints are different from everyone else’s, too.

Take a close look at your fingerprints. See the many tiny lines going this way and that way? These lines form designs with loops, waves, and circles. Each finger has a different design. You have 10 fingers and 10 different fingerprints.

When you were born, the doctors probably made a copy of your footprint. Newborn babies in hospitals look a lot alike, but all their footprints are different. The millions of children in the world have millions of fingerprints and footprints. Now you know, though, that the marks made by your fingers and your feet are yours alone.

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Do you know why you have fingernails and toenails? They help protect the ends of your fingers and toes.

Your fingernails and toenails are made of strong stuff called keratin. Keratin is made up of hard skin. Animal claws, hoofs, scales, feathers, and horns also are made of keratin. Animals use these for protection, too.

The outer skin at the base of your nail is called the cuticle. Your nails grow from the cuticle. As this layer of skin grows, it pushes the older skin towards the tip of the nail. Near the growing area, you cannot see the flow of blood as well as you can in the rest of the nail. This is why you see a light half moon at the base of your nails.

Your nails grow all the time. You need to cut them or file them when they get too long. Otherwise, they may scratch you, split and break, or catch on things. It is a good idea to keep your toenails straight across so that they will not dig into the skin and corners of your toes.

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Your hands and feet helps you do all kinds of things.

Each hand has four fingers and thumb. Your fingers and thumbs pick up things and hold them.

Your fingers and thumbs are good tools. You use them to button your shirt, tie your shoelaces, turn the pages of a book, and move the mouse on a computer.

Your fingers touch and feel things too. They help you know whether something is hot or cold, soft or hard, smooth, rough, or prickly.

You also use your hands to protect yourself. They shield your eyes from bright sunshine, brush away flies, and “catch” you when you fall.

You have five toes on each foot. Your feet can do some of the things your hands can do. You can use your feet to touch and feel things. And if you try, you can even pick up and hold things with your toes. It takes practice!

Your feet also do things your hands cannot do. Your feet support the weight of your body so that you can stand, walk, run, skate, and jump. Your feet are especially good for dancing and kicking a ball.

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