Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 341
Human Skin
Hello Everyone
Do you miss school when you are on your summer holidays or do you miss being on holiday when school starts?
Bill, Bob and Emily love going to school, but they love being on holiday too.
What they do in school gives them lots of ideas for what they want to do in the holidays, l’ve noticed.
Last term, Miss Pringle created a very interesting lesson when she brought in a microscope from home and set the children up with an experiment to do.
Firstly, she gave them a biology lesson and then she taught the children how to take samples of their own cells to look at under the microscope.
All they had to do was wipe the end of a cotton-bud across the inside of their cheek and then wipe it onto a glass slide.
This works because cells shed from the inside of your cheeks all the time – don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt.
They all had a turn of looking at their slides under the microscope. Luckily, the class isn’t very big and it didn’t take long.
Do you know what the biggest organ of your body is?
lt is, of course, your skin.
Your skin is the most incredible organ and Miss Pringle told her class all about it.
Your skin is a stretchy, waterproof surface that covers your entire body.
Without it, your insides would dry out and dirt and germs would get into them.
The top part of it is tough enough to withstand most scratches and bangs and yet it is only 2mm thick.
Your skin is made up of several layers of tissues which guard the underlying organs and muscles.
lt is packed full of sweat gland, hair roots, blood vessels and nerves.
lt plays an important role in giving us sensation of the world around us and it helps to regulate our body temperature too.
You make heat inside your body through the digestion of food and the friction in muscle use, but your blood temperature should be constant no matter what the temperature around your body is – and that can vary quite a lot. Of course, we wear clothes to help keep us warm and we wear more in the winter than the summer, but the skin still needs to react to changes in the temperature that surrounds it.
There are more than 100 sweat glands for each square centimetre of your skin. Each day you lose between half to one litre of sweat and sports people taking a lot of exercise and people out on a hot day, even more. When you get cold, your skin closes the sweat pores up tight. When you look at your bare arms they are covered in little bumps. We call these goose pimples because it looks like the skin of a goose after the feathers have been plucked out.
Skin also helps to make Vitamins D through the transformation of sunlight.
There is a pigment in the skin called melanin which absorbs the ultraviolet radiation that is found in sunlight. More melanin in a body will create darker skin (and also brown eyes instead of blue). Some people are born with more melanin in their skin than others, but the skin can also get darker in sunlight over a period of time. We call this a tan.
Too much sun is not good for your body – but a little sunlight on occasion is. Sunlight helps boost your immune system.
The very outer layer of your skin consists of hardened dead cells. You shed a complete layer of skin every month. This top layer flakes off all the time. Most of the dust in your house is actually dead skin. New skin continues forming because of cell division going on all the time below the older skin. The cells from beneath the skin keep moving outwards and upwards, to replace the cells shedding off.
There are blood vessels which penetrate into the lower layers of the skin. This layer is called the dermis.
Sweat glands are embedded in this dermis, but their ducts (or tubes) push out into the upper layer of the skin. This upper layer is called the epidermis. On the surface of the skin are the sweat glands. When we sweat, our skin becomes moist and as liquid evaporates it cools the skin thus lowering our temperature.
This is why it is important to drink more water on a hot day so that we can replace this lost liquid.
The dermis is much, much thicker than the epidermis.
The thickest skin on your body is on the soles of your feet at 3mm, you may have noticed that the skin on the bottom of your feet seems much tougher than the rest of your skin. The thinnest is on your eyelids at 1mm thick. On a bright day you can see the colour in them when you close your eyes. Any pink colour is created by blood.
Lips and fingertips are among the most sensitive parts of your body and so is your tongue.
Nerves in your skin pick up sensations of touch, pressure, heat, cold and pain. These nerves send messages to the brain and if the sensations are too strong and likely to cause damage, your brain tells your muscles to work quickly and move the endangered skin away from the source of heat or pain or whatever it is concerned about.
For example, if you touch a drawing pin without seeing it, you will snatch your hand away before you are even aware of thinking about what has happened.
Hair and nails are also made of dead cells. They are made of something called keratin. They are not fed by blood or nerves. That is why you can cut them without it hurting.
Hair grows from the hair root in the skin. The hair root is fed by blood and nerves so if you pull your hair, it hurts.
Your hair grows at about 2.3mm a week. You grow about 8.5 metres in a lifetime but whether you have it cut or not, it would not grow that long because these hairs don’t stay with us for our whole lifetime.
You lose about 30 to 60 hairs every day which still leaves you about 100,000 – and new hairs are growing all the time.
The lifetime of each hair is about one to six years before the hair root withers and the hair drops out. After 3 or 4 months rest, the hair root starts to produce a new hair. Blondes constantly lose more hair than brunettes.
Skin can be a great barometer of your health. lt can show you if you are suffering from a lack of nourishment, certain types of vitamins or sleep. lt reacts badly if you are suffering from stress.
So of course what happened after the lesson was that Bill and Bob wanted their own microscope. Funnily enough, Auntie Alice had dug one up when clearing out her attic, it was in one of the many boxes we carried down to the spare bedroom.
You just can’t believe how many things they have found to study under it – especially in the garden.
They are absolutely fascinated by it.
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
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Thank you!
And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bob: Your toe nails are very neat Bill. Do you file them?
Bill: No, l throw them away!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
A cross-section diagram of the skin
(patient.co.uk)
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
This tourist season is at its height in Rocky Bay.
Goodness knows how many more people there are here in the summer than the winter.
The guest houses are full and the camp site is full too.
The streets seem to be just bulging with people these days – all in holiday mode.
Betty Clutterbuck is doing a good trade in her tearooms, Sid and Ethel in the café and Reg and Ruby in the Rusty Anchor Inn on the harbour wall.
And the Rocky Bay Supermarket came up with a good idea to entertain everyone – and advertise itself at the same time.
It had bought some new trolleys earlier in the year, but kept the old ones in the yard at the back because of the idea they had had. They had it in mind to use them for something very special – a trolley race through the streets of Rocky Bay.
Anyone could enter the race.
They asked the police to close a couple of the streets – notices had to be put up well in advance so that everyone knew where the race was going to run.
They had to think carefully about where the route should run because so many of our streets are cobbled and some of them have steps in.
Can you imagine pushing a shopping trolley along a cobbled street!
Of course, we wanted to join in and we tried to put our names down on the list of competitors as soon as we heard what was happening.
There were only so many trolleys, and so only so many people could participate.
Unfortunately, we were too late, but the race went so well that we think it will run again next year.
We will have to get our applications in early!
The manager of the Rocky Bay Supermarket gathered all the staff and contestants together in a meeting to explain what would happen early last month.
Each contestant would take a trolley home with them and decorate it any way they liked.
They would race their trolley around the town and if people liked any design they would throw money into it.
The participants must of course put a solid bottom into the trolley otherwise the money would fall out!
All the money would be used for the upkeep of the village hall and any events that would be put on there.
The person who collected the most money would get a prize.
The person who the judges thought had decorated their trolley in the most inventive and humorous way would also win a prize.
So in a way, the tourists and townspeople would pick a winner and the supermarket staff would too.
The mayor would start the race and the supermarket staff would officiate at the end of the race.
We went to watch the race last week. It was hilarious.
Some of the trolleys crashed into each other – but not much damage was done.
The most important thing was that everyone enjoyed themselves and a lot of money was collected.
It really put the Rocky Bay Supermarket on the map too!
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Quick Quiz
Do you know what these idioms mean?
- As a rule of thumb
- Under someone’s thumb
- To be all fingers and thumbs
- To get the thumbs up
- To twiddle one’s thumbs
- To stick out like a sore thumb
- To make something by the skin of your teeth
- Fingers crossed
- Get your finger out
- To not be able to put your finger on something
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A FOOTBALL SUPPORTER’S TRACK SUlT AND ACCESSORlES
Because football is a winter sport this lovely warm tracksuit is a must for a chilly day. It fits the football fan from last week’s blog post.
There are also accessories to go with it.
The scarf can be knitted with stripes if you prefer.
TRACK SUIT TOP BACK (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and red dk yarn cast on 14 stitches
Purl 1 row
Purl 1 row
Change to white dk yarn
Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch
Change to red dk yarn
Knit 10 rows of stocking stitch
Purl 1 row
Purl 1 row
Cast off
TRACK SUIT TOP FRONT (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and red dk yarn cast on 7 stitches
Purl 1 row
Purl 1 row
Change to white dk yarn
Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch
Change to red dk yarn
Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch
Knit 6 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
TRACK SUIT TOP SLEEVES (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and red dk yarn cast on 10 stitches
Purl 1 row
Purl 1 row
Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch
Cast off
TO MAKE UP
Sew up the seams using over-sew stitching and with right sides together
- Sew up the front seam of the top
- Sew the tops of the sleeves to the shoulders
- Sew up the side seams and the underarm seams
TRACK SUIT TROUSERS (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and red dk yarn cast on 13 stitches
Purl 1 row
Purl 1 row
Knit 10 rows of stocking stitch
Decrease 1 stitch at the beginning of the next 4 rows of stocking stitch
Purl 1 row
Purl 1 row
Cast off
Run a line of Swiss darning up the sides of each piece of knitting using white yarn before you make the trousers up
TO MAKE UP
Sew up the seams using over-sew stitching and with right sides together
- Sew up the front and back seams of the trousers using over-sew stitching and right sides together – then sew up the inside leg seams
BALL AND BOOT BAG (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and red dk yarn cast on 12 stitches
Knit 14 rows of stocking stitch
Purl 1 row
Purl 1 row
Cast off
TO MAKE UP
- Sew up the bottom and side seams using over-sew stitching and with right sides together
- Turn the bag the right way out
- Cut 2 lengths of white yarn 26cm long
- Thread a length through each of the channels at the top of the bag and push the 4 ends through the bottom corners of the bag
- Turn the bag inside out and tie the ends together at each side
- turn the bag the right way out again
BALL (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn tightly cast on 15 stitches
Knit 8 rows of stocking stitch
Don’t cast off
Cut off the yarn leaving a length of about 10cm and thread this through the stitches on your needle and pull the knitting needle away
TO MAKE UP
- Sew up the side seam using over-sew stitching with right sides together
- Thread a length of yarn through the bottom of the knitting and pull tight
- Secure this yarn and turn the ball the right way out
- Stuff and pull into a round shape
- Pull the top shut and secure that yarn too
SUPPORTERS’ SCARF (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 5 stitches
Knit 2 rows of garter stitch
Change to red dk yarn
Knit 74 rows of garter stitch
Change to white yarn
Knit 2 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
Tidy the ends into the knitting
HAT (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 8 stitches
Purl 1 row
Purl 1 row
Change to red dk yarn
Knit 4 rows of stocking stitch
Continue knitting in stocking stitch
Decrease 1 stitch at the beginning of the next 2 rows (6sts)
Change to white dk yarn
Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch
Don’t cast off
Cut off the yarn leaving a length of about 10cm and thread this through the stitches on your needle and pull the knitting needle away
TO MAKE UP
- Sew up the side seams using over-sew stitching and with right sides together using the appropriate colour as you work
- turn the hat the right way out
- Pull the top of the hat shut and bind some white yarn around the bottom of the bobble several times
- Secure the yarn and cut off the excess
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- As a rule of thumb – a way of doing things that is not a strict and exact rule or measurement/roughly speaking
- Under someone’s thumb – under someone’s control
- To be all fingers and thumbs – to be fumbling, like you can’t control your fingers properly
- To get the thumbs up – to get permission to go ahead with something
- To twiddle one’s thumbs – to wait with nothing to do
- To stick out like a sore thumb – to be very obvious
- To make something by the skin of your teeth – to complete some project by a very small margin (eg. We arrived at the airport in time to catch the aeroplane by the skin of our teeth.)
- Fingers crossed – we are hoping for good luck
- Get your finger out – try harder
- To not be able to put your finger on something – you can’t quite specify some information/you can’t understand something fully (eg. There is something l don’t trust about that man, but l can’t quite put my finger on what it is)
