A little boy invited his mother to the first parent meeting of his primary school. To his ______, she said she would go. This would be the first time that his classmates and teachers met his mother. She was not a beautiful woman ______ her scar (疤). His mother told him there was the scar when she was born.

At the meeting, other people were impressed ______ the kindness and natural look of his mother. But the little boy felt embarrassed for his moms looks, and hid ______ behind others. Just at that time, he heard the ______ between his mother and his teacher.

“How did you get the scar on your face?” the teacher asked.

The mother replied, “When my son was a baby, his room caught fire one day. Everyone was too   ______to get into the room. I rush into it in a minute. While I was running towards his bed, a beam (横梁) ______ and I placed myself over him to protect him. I was knocked and I knew nothing. Luckily, someone ______ us.” She touched the burned side of her face. “But I have never regretted doing ______ I did.” She added.

After hearing that, the little boy was so moved that he hugged his mother with ______ in his eyes. He held mother’s right hand tightly for the rest of the day.

“Are you listening, Simon?” Simon’s teacher asked. Simon smiled and shook his head. He never listened or tried hard in class. Talking was so much better.

“One of these days, if you listen, you’ll learn something,” Mrs. Jacobs said.

That evening, Simon started to feel a little bit sick. His throat really hurt. He had hot chocolate to make his throat feel better, but it didn’t work. The next morning, when he opened his mouth to say “Good morning”, nothing came out. Simon’s mother looked at him. “Honey, you’ve lost your voice.”

“Can I stay at home?” He tried to ask, but words didn’t come out. His mother checked him for a fever and said he was good enough to go to school, even if he couldn’t talk.

When he got to school, Mrs. Jacobs said “Hello” to him, and he just nodded. When his friends asked him what TV shows he watched last night, he just shrugged (耸肩). By the time the bell rang, almost everyone was looking at him as if he’d grown a third eye or an extra nose.

Penny raised her hand, “Mrs. Jacobs, why isn’t Simon talking?”

“I’m sick. I can’ t talk,” Simon tried to whisper, but no one could understand. He wrote it down instead.

Simon couldn’t talk to his neighbors. In math class he could hold up fingers if the answer was less than 10, but that wasn’t fun. He decided to try to pay attention. You know what? It wasn’t that bad. He could do his homework that night. It gave him more TV time and game time because his work was all done.

The next day, even though his voice was coming back, he stayed quiet again the third day, he could talk fine, but he didn’t waste time. He listened and raised his hand to speak.

Did you know that the games you play with children can influence their interest in math and science as they grow older? Young children are easily able to learnconceptssuch as big and small, high and low, fast and slow, and heavy and light, but by helping children learn these concepts, you are helping them develop an interest in math and science.

When parents encourage their children to ask questions and help them explore and discover the natural world, they are helping build an interest in math and science. Many scientists say that children who have such experiences at the early age can develop confidence in math and science that pays off (得到回报) as they get older.

Here are some ideas for what you can do to help develop children’s interest in math and science.

Go for a walk with your children. Take time to stop along the way and look at things that the children notice, such as flowers, animals, and insects. Talk with them about what you see, and ask about what they see.

Draw pictures together. Draw a picture of what you have seen, whether it was on the front steps, in the backyard, or something you can see from your window. Ask the child to draw a plant, an animal, or a favorite place, and then ask him or her to tell you about the drawing.

Turn a drawing into a story. write down what your child says about the picture he or she just drew. Ask the child to make up a story about the picture, and keep it with other artwork and stories he or she has developed.

Hello, I’m Li Ming. Kevin is my uncle. He     51     in Boston, America. He’s thirty-five years old. I have a photo of     52    . Look! He’ s tall and thin .He wears a pair of     53    . He looks very cool in the photo. We often send     54     to each other. He asks me to go to America to spend my winter holiday. That must       55     a great winter holiday. I’ll have a good time there.

Last night, I read a story in a magazine. It really impressed me. I’d like to share it with you everyone.

A long time ago, there was a big apple tree. a little boy loved to come and play with it every day. But as time went by, the little boy had grown up and he no longer played around the tree.

One day, the boy came back to the tree. “Come and play with me,” the tree asked the boy.

“I am no longer a kid. I can’t play with you now,” the boy replied, “I need toys.”

“Sorry, I don’t have any. But you can pick all my apples and sell them.”

The boy picked all the apples on the tree and left happily, and he didn’t come back. The tree was sad.

The other day, the boy returned and the tree was so excited.

“Come and play with me,” the tree said.

“I need a house for my family. Can you help me?”

“You can cut off my branches to build your house.”

So the boy cut all the branches off the tree and left happily. The tree was glad to see him happy, but the boy didn’t come since then. The tree was lonely again.

One hot summer day, the boy came back again after he left for so many years.

“Sorry, my boy. But I don’t have anything for you anymore.”

“I don’t need much now, just a place to rest. I am tired after all these years,” the boy replied.

“Good! Please sit down with me and have a rest.”

The boy sat down and the tree was glad and smiled with tears.

61. 假如在今天的主题班会上，你们老师让大家谈一谈在日常生活中应该如何节约自然资源。请你根据以下提示，以“How to save Natural resources”为题写一篇短文，介绍一下你的想法。

How to Save Natural resources

In my class, we had a discussion about how to save natural resources. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________