Lungs

Our body is made up of millions of tiny building blocks called cells. Each cell needs oxygen to stay alive. Where do we get oxygen from? We get it from the air we breath. We breath in and out…stop and check…are you breathing in and out?  Can you put you hand on your chest and feel it going up and down…then that’s alright - you are breathing!

We breathe in through our nose (or mouth) and the air goes down our windpipe into our lungs where the blood picks up the oxygen from it.It takes this oxygen to each cell. Amazing isn’t it?

This oxygen is taken in things with a funny name called Bronchioles…the arrows are pointing to these.

There is a big muscle (muscles are things that help parts of our body move) called the Diaphragm which lays underneath your lungs. It moves down when you breathe in and up when you breathe out. You can’t see any of this of course. It is all happening inside you, all the time as you get on with whatever you are doing.

You can see what happens if you use a balloon….as you breath out your breathe into the balloon, it blows up just like you lungs do when you breathe in. When you let go of the balloon (without tying it) it deflates, goes down, with a hiss. That is like you breathing out.

Sometimes you might cough - and coughing is a good thing as it helps clear stuff we don’t want in our lungs, out. Coughing can be a bit annoying though can’t it? And you should cover your mouth if you can.

You may have noticed that things have been a bit a strange recently. You haven’t been doing many things you would normally do. You may not have gone to nursery school, not seen family or been to play with friends. There has been no  Messy Munchkins! This is because there has been a nasty sickness going around that has effected people’s lungs and made them very ill. We all breath in and out all the time and this breath holds little wet droplets which may have bugs in them. So we have been told not to see so many people to help stop this nasty sickness spreading. Now many of us wear masks when we go out and mix with other people, to help protect them from us, and us from them!

These children are wearing white masks but I decided to make some colourful ones…here are 2 of them. I wash them each time I use them and they are ready to wear again. It is a bit hot and sometimes my glasses steam up! But it make me feel I am helping not just myself, but the people I may get a bit near to when I go out.