Have you ever seen one of your own hairs on your sweater? We “shed” hair, meaning a few hairs fall out every day because they’re done growing. We shed between 50 and 100 head hairs each day! (Don’t worry — new hairs grow back in). Mammals all have hair, even elephants and kangaroos, and they all shed, too. We have about 100,000 hairs on our head, but a cat might have 40 MILLION hairs on its body!
Wee ones: Hold some hair in your fingers. Now try to hold just 2 of those hairs, and let the rest go!
Little kids: Hold a hair straight up from the top of your head. About how long is it in inches? Ask a grown-up to help you guess, or use a ruler! Bonus: If you lose 50 hairs one day and 10 more then next, how many do you lose the 2nd day?
Big kids: How do you “spell” 40 million as a number? Bonus: If the cat loses 1/1000th of those hairs in a day, how many hairs is that – and how many dollars if he gets $1 for each? Then estimate for 1 month and 1 year! (Hint if needed: To divide by 1,000, you take 3 zeroes off the end of the number.)
Answers:
Wee ones: Try to pinch just 2 hairs.
Little kids: Different for everyone…it could be anywhere from half an inch to many inches. Bonus: 60 hairs.
Big kids: 40,000,000. Bonus: $40,000 in one day! In a 30-day month that cat would earn $1,200,000 (more than a million dollars), and in 12 months of about that length, it would earn $14,400,000.
