The Living Bones Inside You: teacher key

How You Grow, grade 4 edition, written for 4th grade. Your bones are alive, and they grow at special spots. Learn what helps them get longer and stronger.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Where does a long bone grow?
   • From the middle outward
   • At each end, near a growth plate (answer)
   • Only along its sides
2. What happens to a growth plate when a person is fully grown?
   • It hardens into solid bone (answer)
   • It turns into cartilage
   • It grows twice as fast
3. What helps the body take in calcium from food?
   • Exercise
   • Vitamin D (answer)
   • Cartilage
4. What does it mean that bone is living tissue?
   • Old bone is removed and new bone replaces it all the time (answer)
   • Bone never changes
   • Bone is only made of cartilage
5. Why do the 60 active minutes a day not have to come all at once?
   • Because walks, jump rope and playground time add up (answer)
   • Because kids only need a minute
   • Because sleep counts as play

Words

• cartilage: rubbery body stuff
• calcium: bone-building mineral
• hormones: body messengers
• tissue: body material
• spurts: quick bursts