Inside your body is a hard frame. The bones in your body make it, and it is called the skeleton. Bones hold up your body and give it its shape. A grown-up's skeleton has 206 bones. How do all of those bones help you move? Let's find out.

Not everything stiff in your body is bone. Cartilage is a tough bendy tissue, not bone. The part of your ear you can see is made of cartilage. A shark has a skeleton made of cartilage instead of bone.

Most muscles are attached to bones, and the bones act as levers that let body parts move. Tendons connect muscles to bones. A joint is a place where two or more bones meet. Cartilage covers the ends of bones in a joint and helps them move without rubbing.

Here are some bone counts. The fingers of each hand have 14 bones. Each finger has three bones, and the thumb has two. A giraffe has seven bones in its neck, the same number as a person. Count the bones in your own fingers.

What if a bone breaks? Here is how it gets help. Doctors use X-rays to see whether a bone is broken. A cast or splint holds a broken bone still while it heals. Children's broken bones can heal well and heal quickly.

Let's end with what bones really are. You may think bones are dry, dead sticks. In fact, bones are living tissue. Bones store calcium, a mineral, and give some back to the blood when the body needs it. Bones also get stronger when you use them by being active.

Words to know

• tendons: muscle-to-bone cords
• joint: where bones meet
• cartilage: bendy tissue
• calcium: bone mineral