【推荐1】How to Contribute to Thanksgiving Dinner As a Teenager

Your family has been stressing out about hosting this year's Thanksgiving meal for weeks now, and you want to help out. The problem is, you're only a teenager.    1    

Go grocery shopping. If you have enough time and the food hasn't been purchased yet, ask your parents if you can do the grocery shopping for them.    2    If you don't have a car and walking to the grocery store or biking there isn't a choice, ask if you can go to the grocery store along with your parents to make the shopping process easier.

Clean the house. A clean home is the best setting for Thanksgiving dinner.    3    Clear an area for guests to put their shoes, coats, and bags so they aren't in the way.

Set the table. It will save your parents’ time, so they can finish preparing the meal. If you're using place cards, put wine glasses at the seats of guests who will be drinking. Some guests may have their kids seated at the table.    4    

Plan a fun family activity. This is a great thing to do when people are either waiting for the meal or looking for something to do after the meal. This is where you come in.    5    You may even take some family photos. They'll be happy that you captured these memories later.

【推荐2】Mr. and Mrs. Smith have two children, Kevin and Jenny. The whole family are all busy, so they often leave notes to each other. Here are these four notes of today.

【推荐1】Most foodies (吃货) agree that eating healthy food is important. But sometimes making good food choices can be tough. Now, there are apps that can help people learn about the food they eat to improve their diets and their dining out experiences.

Cheese & Wine Pairing app

Wine and cheese can be a great combination. But which wines go best with which cheeses? Max McCalman’s Cheese & Wine Pairing app can help. It provides information about hundreds of different cheeses and advises wines to pair with each. Max McCalman’s Cheese & Wine Pairing app is free for iPhones and iPads.

Calorific app

What does 200 calories look like? It can be hard to picture. Calorific provides images of 200 calories worth of food. The pictures can help people on a diet and those who just want to eat healthier food. The app is free for iPads and iPhones. There is also a version that provides more information for a price.

HappyCow app

Vegetarians do not eat animal meat. Vegans do not eat any animal products. The HappyCow app is made for both groups. Users can search for vegetarian-vegan restaurants and stores around the world. A free version of HappyCow is available for Android that has ads and requires an Internet connection.

LocalEats app

Restaurant chains, like McDonald’s, can be found almost anywhere a person might travel. But sometimes travelers want to eat like locals. LocalEats is designed for that. It lists locally owned restaurants so users can try foods from that area. The app costs about a dollar.

【推荐2】Mr. Guo is a teacher from Xi’an. He asked his students to hand in their homework through a QR code(二维码). “We spent an hour or two in class learning how to generate (产生) the codes, and in the end everything gets easier” said Gao. “When students finish the homework, they keep it on WeChat. Then, each student makes his own QR code and gives it to me. So I can check their work everywhere using my computer or telephone.”

The QR codes can be sent to Mr. Guo by email, QQ and WeChat. When Guo scans(扫描)his students’ QR codes, their homework appears on his phone. He finds that their homework becomes more creative, with many pictures, music and even videos.

Guo’s students like the new way and think it is interesting. “We are living in the information age. Many students like to work with computers, which makes learning more fun,” said Tingting, a student of Guo’s.

“The paper is not easy to keep, but the code is easy to keep and share,” Guo said. “It is worth trying to use new technology in education. Education itself is a kind of creation. I don’t want my students to fall behind the times.”

However, some parents are worried. They are afraid that their children will spend too much time on computers and less time communicating with teachers. But in fact, it’s unnecessary. Students still need to look up information in books and write it down when they do their homework. They only use the code when they hand in their homework, which doesn’t take them too much time. Also for teachers, it allows them to check the Students’ work at any time. And it’s also an easy way to share homework with other students.

【推荐1】Chile is famous for its many attractions. If you’re planning a visit, be sure to add “Mano del Desierto” or “Hand of the Desert” to your must-see list.

Standing 11 meters tall and made of iron and cement (水泥), this sculpture of a hand emerges from the sand in the Atacama Desert, which is known as the driest desert in the world outside of polar regions. The sculpture was created by Mario Irarrazabal in the early 1980s and was financed by a local nonprofit organization. The sculpture is not only impressive in terms of its design but also in the message it expresses. Many people believe that the hand represents the weakness and helplessness of human beings, as well as their strength and determination to overcome hardships. It is a reflection on the human condition and our relationship with nature.

If you’re interested in visiting the Hand of the Desert, take Route 26 or 28 from Antofagasta, a port city in northern Chile. The sculpture is located between mile markers 1309 and 1310 and can be reached from either direction. The desert’s flatness makes it easy to spot the sculpture from far away.

Visitors should take precautions (预防措施) before leaving, such as filling their gas tanks, packing plenty of water, and wearing sunscreen. They should also avoid driving too quickly, as many car accidents occur in the desert each year.

For those who are nervous about driving alone, working with an agency like Plan South America is a good choice. The founder of the agency, Harry Hastings, said that he always tries to join a visit to the sculpture with guests traveling to the desert, calling it an “important landmark” that is both culturally and visually significant.

【推荐3】When you go to the US, someone often says to you, “Give me five.” What should you do? Do not get five dollars from your pocket! It will make others laugh! The person is not asking for your money, but your fingers.

In the US, “give me five” or “give me the high five” is a popular gesture (手势). You can see it often in films or on TV. It means hitting each other’s right hands together.

People do it when they meet for the first time or something happy happens. For example, a student has good marks in exams. If a football team wins a game, the players will give high fives to everyone around to celebrate.

This gesture may come from the old Roman gesture of raising the right arm for the emperor (皇帝). This showed the person raising his arm did not have a sword (剑) in his hand.

Why not try to give the high five to your friends?