【推荐2】It’s natural that parents love their children. But the way many Chinese parents educate their children is not the best.

    1    

Many children in China are looked after by their grandfathers and grandmothers because their parents are busy. But children need to spend as much time as possible with their parents.

    2    

Most Chinese parents want their children to succeed, only to save face with their friends and relatives. So they often compare their children with others. Parents often say, “You see somebody else is studying hard, look at what good grades they have and what awards they have won.” Comparing children is the worst thing. For many children, it will only bring them much disappointment.

    3    

Parents should knock at the doors when they go into their children’s rooms. Parents should communicate with their children and respect their rights (权利) and decisions. Children who are not respected also do not know how to respect others.

    4    

Many children are asked to do what their parents expect, even though they do not like it, such as learning to play the piano, or going to study in a foreign country. It should be decided by the children themselves.

    5    

Many parents think school performance is everything. In fact, the integrated (综合的) ability is important. It will have a lifelong effect (影响) on children.

【推荐3】Every day, you may go to school by school bus. But, do you have lessons on the bus? One small farm in Mexico, there are no schools. A bus is the school. The driver of the bus is the teacher, It's a school bus, but it doesn't take the children to school. It just goes around from place to place, and sometimes it comes to this farm. The bus will stay here for three months. The farmers call it a school on wheels. Every time the bus comes, the farmers will come, running to it, shouting and laughing. They warmly welcome the school bus.

When the bus is on the farm, in the morning, the teacher teaches the small children. In the afternoon, the bigger children come to have their lessons because they must work in the morning.

At night, the fathers and mothers come to school. They want to learn, too.

However, the farmers hope that they can have a real school some day.

【推荐1】John Carlin was a “Jack-of-all-trades.” He was an artist and writer. He taught himself five foreign languages. He was a leader among the deaf.

John Carlin was born in Philadelphia in 1813. His father was a poor shoemaker. His younger brother, Andrew, was also deaf. John and Andrew did not need to do things that other children of their ages had to do, so they had much free time to walk around the city.

John got many rich experiences when he was young. He showed his talent for drawing early in life. He often drew pictures on the floor with chalk and when his mother saw what he had done, she would quickly clean them with a mop (拖把).

John went to work as a house painter when he was 12. His days were busy with work. However, he taught himself foreign languages at night. When he was 20, he went to New York to learn drawing. When he ran out of his money, he went to work again. But he would return to drawing whenever he could afford to.

John was the first person to receive an honorary degree (荣誉学位) from Gallaudet. He was one who didn’t let deafness stop him from doing what he wanted to. He beat all difficulties and became a successful American.

【推荐2】Frank is an 8-year-old student. He works hard and is good at his subject. His parents and teachers like him very much. But he has a very big head, so he looks very funny and his classmates often make fun of(取笑) him.

Last month, he had a 10-day vacation at his uncle’s home. He made some new friends soon. They played together happily. But one afternoon he cried(哭) and said to his uncle,“All the children make fun of me. They say l have a big head.”

“Don’t listen to them,” his uncle said. “You have a beautiful head. You look cool. Now don’t cry. Go to the fruit store to buy some apples. I’ll make apple pies(馅饼) for you.”

Frank said, “OK, give me a shopping bag now”. “Oh dear, you don’t need one. You can use your hat.” His uncle said.

Li Yunli recalls that when she was a child, the water in Dianchi Lake in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, was so clean that local people could drink it directly.

But the lake was greatly polluted in the 1980s. Local people tried to keep away from it, even though they had once depended on its fish for their living. Many people chose to change jobs and go somewhere else to make a living, but not Li Yunli. Instead, she set up her mind to clean the lake.

She has been cleaning the lake for over 30 years now. And her hard work has made her one of China’s 100 model environmental protection volunteers.

In 1987, local government started a volunteer program to deal with the growing number of water hyacinths (水葫芦). Li attended it. The following year, an all woman team was built to do the cleaning in the lake. Their job was to salvage the water hyacinths and other things in the lake. Li was the leader of the team.

Since then, she and her team can often be seen starting work at 7 a. m. whether it’s rainy or sunny. The hardest period time is from June to August, when the water hyacinths grow fastest. Plants and rubbish during this period are blown in many different directions and rain sometimes makes the work harder. “I grew up near Dianchi. I’m cleaning it not only for the lake, but also for myself and for future people,” Li Yunli said. “As long as I am hard-working in taking the lead in he clean-up, more people will join us to protect Dianchi, and the lake will return to its best condition.”

Thanks to the team’s work and also to the increasing attention from the local government, there have been positive(积极的) changes to the lake.

【推荐2】Do you remember the name of your kindergarten teacher? I do. Her name was Mrs White. And I thought she must be some older relation of Walt Disney’s Snow White, because she had the same bright blue eyes, short dark hair, red lips and fair skin.

I don’t remember much about what we learned in her class, but my mother once told me that we used to write a lot. And I would bring back what I wrote and she would look at it. She found there were so many mistakes. But no red corrections. And always a star. Sometimes even a Good! It would make my heart fly with happiness. But it worried my mother, so one day when she went to meet Mrs White for one of those Parent-Teacher meetings, she asked her why she never corrected my mistakes and why she never pointed out my spelling and grammatical mistakes with a red pen.

Mrs White told my mother that the children were just beginning to get excited about using   words, about forming sentences. She didn’t want to make them lose that enthusiasm(热情) with red ink. Spelling and grammar can wait. The wonder of words won’t… And maybe she didn’t say it exactly like that. It was a long time ago. And what my mother gave me was the gist(大意) of what she could remember. The rest I added in because I grew up learning to use words with loving confidence like that.

Now I understand if Mrs White had used her red pen more precisely(精确地), I maybe wouldn’t be telling you about this now. I look back now and think she must have been a wonderful teacher to exercise such red-pen-restraint(克制). She allowed the joy, wonder and excitement of expression flower to bloom. All of us loved writing at that time.

I used to misspell beautiful a lot. I couldn’t remember if the e went before the a. My teacher in high school was angry with me because she pointed out this mistake for many times. At last, I could put e and a into their right places. Pretty is easier to spell, but it doesn’t hold as much as you mean sometimes. Thanks to Mrs White, I had no worries about writing even if I couldn’t quite spell it out. Because life isn’t Pretty. It’s Beautiful.

【推荐3】A boy called Mike had many friends, and he was proud of it. Whoever he met, he would like to show off how popular he was at school.

One day, his grandpa said to him, “Mike, I know that you don’t have as many friends as you think. Many of them are not true to you.” Mike thought maybe his grandpa was right. However, he wasn’t sure how he could test whether his schoolmates were real friends or not, so he asked his grandpa. The old man answered, “I have just exactly what you need. It’s in my room. Wait a minute.” The old man left, soon returning as if (好像) carrying something in his hand, but Mike could see nothing there. “Take it. It’s a very special chair. Because it’s invisible, it will be hard for you to sit on it. However, if you manage to sit on it you can use the chair’s magic power to tell who your real friends are.” Mike took the strange invisible chair to school. At break time he asked everyone to form a circle, and he put himself in the middle, with his chair. “Nobody moves. You’re about to see something amazing,” said Mike. Then he tried sitting on the chair. Having difficulty seeing it, he missed and fell to the ground. Everyone had a pretty good laugh. “Wait, wait,” said Mike, making another try. But again he missed the chair.

Mike didn’t give up. He kept trying to sit on the magic chair. Finally, he did it. This time he felt himself in midair. Then he experienced the magic that his grandpa had been talking about. Looking around, Mike saw George, Lucas and Diana holding him up, so be wouldn’t fall. But some schoolmates whom he had regarded as friends had done nothing but made fun of him. Mike was quite thankful to his grandpa, who helped his test who his true friends were.

Do you do any chores at home? Do you take any labor (劳动) courses at school?     1     They can not only make you form good habits but also help you a lot in the future. But how to get proper practice and improve our practical ability? Here are some suggestions.

Do chores at home.

    2     Doing some dishes or taking out the rubbish is a good choice. Many students think it is a waste of time. But actually, it is important because it provides us with basic skills, which enables us to live independently and adapt (适应) to the changes in life confidently.

    3    

It’s reported that Labor Education will be included in the courses of primary and middle schools in China. This policy can make students realize the importance of labor. Schools will offer different kinds of labor courses to students.     4    

Join clubs.

There must be all kinds of clubs for you, such as the cooking club and paper-cutting club. You can join the clubs that you are interested in so as to make some friends with who have the same interests as you.

Take part in competitions.

If you are the winner in cake-making competition, your parents will be proud of you.     5     Through them, you may find more fun in doing housework. What’s more, they will encourage you to do more chores and learn more skills.

It’s really important to take labor education both at school and at home, which will help you become more and more independent while growing up.

【推荐2】Parents usually don’t let their children cook. They think it’s dangerous for children to do it. However, scientists say that it’s good for children to do some easy work about cooking, such as doing the dishes and washing vegetables.

Cooking makes children smart.

In some cooking activities, children can choose and decide what things to put in a dish or how much salt to put in a dish. That’s a great way to make them think attentively. At the same time, they can learn how to serve their friends by cooking themselves. They can also learn to eat healthily.

Cooking teaches children to feel how things change.

When helping cook in the kitchen, children can touch some different ingredients（食材）, and they can also see how food changes by temperature. So it’s good for them to get life experience.

Cooking makes children confident（自信的）.

When children learn to cook, they usually feel that they have grown up, and they can do something for their family members. Children can cook a great dinner to show their love. So, cooking is well worth（值得）learning.

Cooking teaches children cultures.

Cooking in one culture is quite different from that in another. When cooking different kinds of foods, children can also learn about different cultures. Also, children can learn some traditional eating cultures by cooking.

【推荐3】Many parents do not let their children do housework because they want their children to focus on their studies. This thought must be changed.     1    

Housework builds children’s responsibility (责任).

Children are a part of the family, so it is clear that they also have responsibility for doing housework.    2     The adults who did housework at age 3 or 4 are likely to be successful in their mid-20s because they have more responsibility for other areas of their lives.

    3    

It is very bad when the children can do housework, but they just stand and see their parents do chores. Sharing housework helps make everyone be in good moods. Therefore, start doing housework with children!

Housework makes children independent.

Grandparents and parents cannot always be children’s side.    4     Teaching them how to do housework is an important way to make them become independent adults in the future.

    5     This is because not only you want them to share with you, but also housework plays a part in children’s development.