Skin and the Sense of Touch

Let’s begin with skin that wraps you up and keeps you in,
From the top of your head to the soles of your feet,
It helps keep out cold and helps hold in heat.
It’s a colorful covering germs can’t get through,
Skin protects the inside of you.
Because we have skin we can touch and feel
Things in the world around us!
Our skin is our largest organ and allows us to feel things. It protects our body and is different colors from pale white, to red, yellow, olive, brown and dark ebony. The color of skin is controlled by melanin. The darker the skin – the more melanin is in the cells. Melanin protects skin from sunburn. Some people have freckled skin and some people have no melanin at all and are very white and this is called albino. You can also have special birthmarks or moles on your skin.
Our skin is alive! Blood feeds the skin the oxygen and nutrition that it needs to stay alive through tiny blood vessels. In a lifetime we shed about 45 pounds of skin
LAYERS OF THE SKIN:
EPIDERMIS The skin you see. Your epidermis is always showing! New cells are always forming underneath. You could have a new epidermis in 2 weeks to 2 months. What you see are dead skin cells that flake off.
How the outside epidermis layer helps us:
1. Our first defense against bacteria.
2. Keeps moisture in our body
3. Holds the body together
DERMIS The dermis is thicker than the epidermis and includes the sebaceous or sweat glands that make sebum (the skin’s natural oil that makes skin waterproof!), oil glands, nerve endings, heat, cold, and pressure sensing cells. There is a fat layer that acts as a shock absorber, insulation, and stores energy from food. Hair grows from a follicle canal and oil is produced to keep it soft and flexible.
Blood vessels and fat help control the body’s temperature. We get flushed or red faced when hot and we start to sweat. When we sweat, we cool off and get rid of waste. When we are cold the blood vessels contract and we may get “goose bumps” or when the blood vessels narrow it may make us shiver. You may get rosy cheeks when it’s very cold because blood goes to surface to keep warm
SKIN SAFETY:
The sun can burn skin so we should use sunscreen if we are in the sun a long time.
98.6 is our normal body temperature. Be good to your skin and it will stick close to you! Skin loves to be scrubbed. Always wash cuts and scrapes and dress them if needed. If a cut is deep you may need it sewn up. You may need to get a tetanus shot if you get cut by something that is rusty.
The thickness of skin varies from location to location on an organism. In humans, the skin located under the eyes and around the eyelids is the thinnest skin in the body and is one of the first areas to show signs of aging. The skin on the palms and the soles of the feet is 4 mm thick and the thickest skin in the body. Our fingerprints are individual and all different and used to identify people.
Our skin uses the sun to make vitamin D to help our body build strong bones and teeth.
The skin of our head (our scalp) has about 5 million hair follicles. Hair is made of keratin from protein and our fingernails and toenails are keratin.
Children are usually frightened when they see blood and they need to know that it is OK and that it has cells that fight germs and infections so when the skin is scratched or injured it will bleed some so that germs won’t enter the body. Then white cells in the blood gobble up germs they find and the blood clots forming a scab that gets hard as the skin heals and it falls off. If they understand the role blood plays they will lose their fear.
If you want to let them practice storytelling, let some of them tell about a time when they were hurt.
Many illness and allergies can affect the skin. Some plants like poison ivy can cause rashes and some illnesses like chicken pox can make sores on the skin. I was working in the garden and the sap of the century plant burned my skin. Be cautious and take care of your skin. If you fall or something hits your body you may get a bruise. The area may turn blue from broken vessels that will eventually heal.
Again . . . What does skin do for us?
1. Keeps germs out.
2. Keeps water in.
3. Helps hold the body together.
4. Grows hair.
5. Sweats and cools us off.
6. Makes vitamin D to feed bones and teeth
7. Oils the skin and makes it waterproof.
8. Stores energy.
9. Helps keep us warm.
10. It allows us the important sense of touch that we can feel things like textures and temperatures through our skin
ACTIVITIES:
Let children compare their skin colors.
They can see blood vessels in skin and hair growing from it.
Fur is dense hair and augments the insulation skin provides and may serve as camouflage. On some animals, the skin is very hard and thick, and can be processed to create leather. Reptiles and fish have hard protective scales on their skin for protection, and birds have hard feathers, all made of tough β-keratins. Amphibian skin is not a strong barrier to passage of chemicals and is often subject to osmosis. Have samples of other kinds of skin coverings like, fur, feathers, scales, snakeskin, or toy examples of animals with different coverings like, fur, needles, scales, feathers, or exoskeleton chitonous outside coverings like bugs have.
I have a little feely bag and the kids take turns trying to guess what they feel in the bag without looking. Young children love to do this. You can also create a texture box from fabrics or see if certain colors make them feel warm or cold.