Our five senses

Our bodies are amazing. We all have five senses. Senses are special things we can do.
We have:
Our eyes for seeing - This sense is sight
Our ears for hearing - This sense is sound
Our nose for smelling - This sense is smell
Our mouth for tasting - This sense is taste
Our hands for touching - This sense is touch

Imagine what it would be like not to have one of your senses. Get someone to blindfold you and try and walk to the door. Make sure someone helps you so that you don't hurt yourself. Or you could try and watch the TV with the sound turned down. Not so much fun is it?

The Human Body

Skeleton - The bones in your skeleton help support your body and help you stay upright. They also have an important job of protecting your body parts and mainly your organs. The muscles joined to your bones help you move. The bones in your head is called the skull. This protects your brain.

Brain - Your brain controls your whole body and tells the organs what to do and tells your legs and arms to move when you want to go somewhere.

Heart - This is the organ that pumps the blood around the body to the other organs.

Lungs - This organ takes oxygen from the air and transfers this to your blood. It then gets takes carbon dioxide from your blood and you breathe this out.

Stomach - This organ breaks down the food that you eat and and transfers the food into energy.

Parts of the Human Body
An animated sequence that tours the human body, picturing and naming the main body parts and describing what they do. How many parts of your body can you name?

Keeping Healthy

It's important to look after your body so that all your body parts can work properly. Our bodies need water, food, air (see lungs above) and exercise.

Why do we need water?

Water is very important to our body. Without it, we would only live for a few days. We need water in our bodies to help carry around all the nutrients we get from our food. It's also a way of our body keeping the right temperature. If we don't drink enough water our body struggles to work. We then will start to feel a bit grumpy, tried and it will be hard to concentrate. That's why it's a good idea to keep some water with you while you work.

When we exercise we lose water from our body through sweating. We must remember to replace the water we use by drinking plenty when we are exercising.

How much water do I need to drink?

What food should I eat?

It is very important to live a healthy lifestyle in order for our bodies to work correctly. This means eating a balanced diet and drinking enough water. We need to eat the right amounts of food from the main food groups:

• fruit & vegetables
• carbohydrates
• proteins
• dairy
• sugar & fats

Why do I need to exercise?

Exercising keeps your heart, lungs and muscles strong and healthy. We need to exercise every day to keep your body in tip top condition. Have you ever ran about so much that your can feel you heart beating quickly and hard afterwards? That's a good thing. It means that your are making your heart stronger by working hard. It is also working your lungs too. 

Exercise can make us feel better as well. Exercising can make us feel happy and more positive and give us a lot more energy. It helps us to concentrate and it can also help us sleep well at night too. 

How much exercise do I need?

Children between 5 and 8 years old should do one hour of exercise a day if they can. You can tell if you have worked hard enough if you start to feel sweaty and your heart is beating fast.

Washing your hands

Looking after your teeth

Brushing your teeth twice a day helps remove any sugar that may build up around your teeth and gums. If we let this sugar build up it could damage our teeth.

How well do you brush your teeth?

Ask in a pharmacy for a special tablet that turns all the plaque in your mouth coloured and see if you can brush your teeth clean. Notice how long it takes, you should aim to brush your teeth for 2 minutes, twice a day. Find a timer and time yourself brushing.

NOTE: Please follow the instructions on the packet carefully.

Take a look at your teeth in a mirror. Can you see that they are not all the same? How many teeth do you have? Now count how many teeth an adult has. Do you have more or less than them?

Brushing your teeth
Learn how to ensure your mouth stays healthy by brushing properly.