Who invented toys? It's hard to believe millions, maybe billions of people have invented toys. Most of these people are kids. Kids invent toys from all kinds of materials, such as stones, sticks, paper, even clothes. And these toys are in different shapes; round, square, and so on.
Sometimes adults invent toys, too, but in many cases (在许多情况下) , they don't actually invent the toy but take a toy that has been invented somewhere before and make it popular. Take the yo-yo for example. Yo-yos have been around for thousands of years. We know this because yo-yos have been found in ancient graves (坟墓) in some countries. This is how we know that stone yo-yos were used back in ancient Greece. In the 1800s, they became very popular as children's toys, first in England and then in the United States. Then people got tired of them for a while until Donald Duncan went into the yo-yo business. He hired "yo-yo men" to demonstrate (示范) and sell yo-yos door to door. This way, yo-yos got popular little by little. Today the name Duncan still goes with yo-yos, one of the most popular toys around the world.
Another example is teddy bears. Teddy bears, one of the most popular toys, were named after a president of the United States, although he didn't invent them. President Teddy Roosevelt was a hunter (猎人) . He was good at hunting and on one of his hunting trips he had met a bear. That led to editorial (社论) cartoons showing pictures of President Roosevelt and a cute little bear. Somehow that led to cute, sewed (缝制的) bears for little kids to play with.
If you cannot travel around the world, why not travel on the Internet? GeoGuessr is a new online travel game. The game is easy to play, but nearly impossible to win. The new online game challenges your geography skills.
How to play the game
When you think you know where the photo was taken, click on the Google map to place your marker.
Click on the "Make A Guess" button on the bottom of the map. A new image will appear, showing the distance between the area you chose and the actual location. GeoGuessr will tell how many kilometers away you were and how many points you earned.
You get five chances to guess the location. After the fifth one, you see a map showing your guesses, the correct location and the number of points you earned.
Helpful hints(提示)
Here are a few tips to help you identify what part of the planet you are seeing.
look around and see if you can find any words on signs to show the local language. For example, if both French and English are on signs, Canada might be a good guess.
Make a note of whether the cars drive on the right or the left side of the road. If cars are driving on the left, that narrows your guesses.
The more you play the game, the better you will get at geography.
With the Chinese language growing in popularity, the UK government plans to invest 10 million pounds to help more kids learn Chinese. Do you think it is necessary for UK pupils to learn Chinese?
Seneca (Canada)
I studied French for 2 years in high school, and German for 4 years in college and got good marks. I studied Chinese for about 4 months before moving to China. Any language, if you don't use it, it will be easy to lose. I've forgotten the French I learned except for a few phrases. I speak Chinese every day. My writing, reading and listening are quite good, but far from fluent. I think nowadays, it's almost necessary to learn Chinese.
Tony (the UK)
Learning any language can be valuable, but it is not suitable for everyone. Chinese is a difficult language to learn, and teachers in the UK are not good at teaching foreign languages. However, China is a big and developing market for English business people. For them, Chinese is worth learning.
Bill (the US)
I don't think Chinese will become as widely spoken throughout the world as English. To learn Chinese, you have to devote yourself to learning how to write and read it It's too difficult to learn. But in the future Chinese will become more popular, and that is a good thing.
We all know that many inventions have changed our life a lot. They play important roles in our daily life. Here are some interesting inventions.
Morpher
Some people refuse to wear helmets（头盔）because they're thick and heavy. Morpher is a bike helmet made of plastic. It is just as strong as traditional helmets, but it can be folded（折叠）almost completely flat, making it easier to carry. Morpher may be avaiable for sale in stores in the near future.
HyperAdapt
Have you ever seen the movie Back to the Future? Maybe everyone wants the pair of shoes in the movie that can tighten or loosen by themselves. Now, thanks to the Shoe Factory, the dream is realized. When you push a button on the shoe, HyperAdapt can tighten or loosen around the feet.
Flyte
Flyte is a light bulb that can float（漂浮） and turn. Flyte has been popular with most people since it came out in January. The company also introduced a lot of similar products, including a planter, Lyfe, which came out in June.
Little Printer
It looks lovely and is called Little Printer. This machine can print news headlines（摘要）, riddles and other things on a roll（卷） of paper. If you want to make your own little newspaper, don't forget to use it.
Some people have a very poor sense of direction. Unluckily, I am one of them. I have visited a place many times but I may still get lost there the next time.
When I was a little girl, I never dared to ask strangers the way. And so I used to walk around in circles and hope that by chance I would get to the place I was going to.
Now, I am no longer too shy to ask people for directions, but I often receive useless or ever wrong information. So I try to avoid giving people wrong directions. It anyone asks me the way somewhere, I would say, "Sorry, I am a stranger here."
Once on my way to work I was stopped by a man. He asked me if I could tell him the way to the Friendship Building. I gave him my usual reply. But just as I walked on only a few steps, I realized that he had asked the way to my office building. However, I had no time to turn back and look for him. I hurried to meet someone at my office and I didn't want to keep him waiting.
When I just got to my office, the secretary showed in the man who had asked me for directions. Imagine how awkward I was and how surprised he was when we saw each other at the first sight!
“Homestay is a form of study abroad program. It allows the visitor to rent a room from a local(当地的)family to better understand the local lifestyle. It also helps to improve the visitor's language ability,” said a teacher during a school meeting last term. “Students who wish to learn more about foreign cultures or to get foreign experience should join this kind of holiday. I am sure you won't be disappointed(失望的).”
After this special meeting, I always thought about this kind of holiday. Last month, I had a chance at last to go on such a holiday with some of my schoolmates and we went to London, a place where I had wanted to go since years ago.
As we were still young, we had a group leader who planned things for us and looked after us. After we got to London, we went to stay with different families. I was lucky that my host family(寄宿家庭) was a white couple who had a daughter about my age. They treated me as a daughter of their family during my stay there. They were interested in me and I learnt a lot of things from them, too.
The holiday was filled with activities every day. After breakfast, a local teacher would come to take us in his car. Then we would have classes or go on a sightseeing trip to different places of interest like the Big Ben, the London Bridge, and the Buckingham Palace. We would go back to our own homes after the activities.
The holiday was a valuable experience for me. I enjoyed every minute of it. Yet, time really flew fast. Three weeks later, we had to leave “homes”for Hong Kong.
China Youth says that more and more girl students have entered colleges to study in the recent few years. As we know, once the number of boys was larger than that of girls, and boys did much better than girls in our country for a long time. Now, things have changed a lot.
In recent years, the proportion of girl students is growing fast. In 1998, about 39.7% of college students were girls. In 2000, it was 41.07% and in 2001, the number was 42.14%.
There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, there is little difference between boys and girls in their intelligence(智力). That's to say, girls are as clever as boys. And boys have more interests than girls, so they may not always do well in their study.
Secondly, girls are more careful than boys. They work harder at school and they do better in all exams. Another reason is that with the development of society, people pay more and more attention to girls' education.
Reading is the key to school success and, like any skill, it takes practice. A child learns to walk by practicing until he no longer has to think about how to put one foot in front of the other. An excellent sportsman practices until he can play quickly, correctly and without thinking. Educators call it "automaticity (自动性)".
A child learns to read by sounding out the letters and finding the meaning of the words. With automaticity, he doesn't have to think about the meaning of the words, so he can give all his attention to the meaning of the text.
It can begin as early as the first grade. In a recent study of children in Illinois schools, Alan Rossman of Northwestern University found that automatic readers in the first grade not only read almost three times as fast as the others, but also got better results in exams.
According to Rossman, the key to automaticity is the amount (数量) of time a child spends on reading, not his IQ. Any child who spends at least 3.5 to 4 hours a week reading books, magazines or newspapers will probably reach automaticity. It can not happen if a child turns off TV just one night for reading at home.
You can test yourself by reading something new that is suitable (适合) for your level. If you read aloud with expression, with a sense of the meaning of the sentences, you are probably an automatic reader. If you read brokenly, one word at a time, without expression or meaning, you need more practice.
Jeff has an illness. He is recording his words so that his little son will be able to hear his voice in the future.
Jeff caught the illness in 2011. The doctor told him that he might have only two to five years to live and the illness would make him lose his voice, so he decided to record his voice for his 13-month-old son, Bill.
His wife Gina said, "Jeff used to play and sing in band, so his voice is important to him. I can't imagine not having his voice around. I would certainly like Bill to know his father's voice in this way.”
Jeff and his wife hope that they can save his real voice for their little son. He now spends his weekend and evenings recording his voice. Their little son, Bill, will feel his parents' love when he grows up.
