Pictorial representation of body parts and their uses.
Description of parts of the body
The Face
Mouth – you use your mouth to talk, to eat and to breathe.
Nose – You can smell things with your nose. You can also breathe through your nose.
Nostrils – these are the two holes in your nose
Cheeks – the parts of your face between your nose and your ears
Hands
Hand – the parts at the ends of our arms where our fingers are located that we use to pick things up, scratch an itch, wave hello and lots more!
Fingers – five long, thin digits attached to the end of each of our hands
Shoulder – the joint near our neck that attaches our arm to our body, allowing it to move around
Wrist – the joint that attaches our hand to the rest of our arm, and allows our hand to move in lots of different directions
Elbow – a joint in our arm that means we can fold it almost in half
Legs
Shin – the part of our leg below the knee
Foot – the parts at the very end of our legs that we use to stand up, walk and run
Hips – the joints that attaches our legs to the rest of our body
Knee – the joint in the middle of our leg that lets us bend it so we can walk and run
Toes – five small digits attached to the end of each of our feet
Internal Parts of the Body
heart – your heart pumps your blood around your body.
lungs – when you breathe, the air goes into your lungs.
veins – these transport blood through your body. They are like little tubes.
brain – this is your ‘thinking machine’ inside your head.
throat – food goes down this to get to your stomach.
liver – the organ that cleans your blood.
stomach – your food goes here when you swallow it.
kidneys – the organs that process all your body waste.
skeleton – all of the bones in your body.
ribs – these are the bones that protect the organs in your chest.
bones – your skeleton consists of many bones. There are about 206 in your body.
skin – it covers almost the entire body and helps keep all the organs and muscles in place.
Trivia time
- Fingernails often grow more quickly than toenails.
- If you measure the distance between your wrist and your elbow, that will be about the same as the length of your foot.
- Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
- The largest organ inside our body is the liver.
- Your funny bone isn’t really a bone at all – it’s a nerve at your elbow, which is why you feel all tingly when you accidentally hit it.
- The parts of you arm are – hand (and fingers), wrist and elbow. Your arm connects to your body at your shoulder.
- The parts of your leg are – foot (and toes), ankle, shin, knee and thigh. Your leg connects to your body at your hip.
- The parts of your face are – forehead, eyes, ears, cheeks, nose and mouth
- Because we’ve got two ears, eyes, arms, hands, legs and feet, we use ‘left’ and ‘right’ to tell them apart.
Important facts
Our body contains trillions of cells – cells are the smallest recorded living things.
In addition to keeping our cells healthy and clean, our blood also works for our immune system and contains antibodies and white blood cells that fight germs and diseases.
Vital organs are the parts of our body that we need to stay alive. These include the heart, brain, lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas.
Our body has symmetry – that means it looks the same on the left side as it does on the right side.
The body uses different systems to work properly. Some of these are:
- Circulatory system– how our blood moves around
- Digestive system– how the food we eat turns into nutrients, fats and waste through our stomach and intestines
- Muscular system– how we move around; our muscles allow us to do everything from walking and running to picking things up and laughing at jokes!
- Skeletal system– another term for the bones in our body, which together make up our skeleton
- Nervous system– how messages get sent around our body, through our brain, so we know when we’re hungry, when something hurts, when something smells good and when something feels soft
