【推荐3】Would you like to make some new friends? Here you can know something about three different animals.

	Hello! I’m Koala Bear. Do you know where I am? Yes, I’m in Australia. I’m very cute (可爱的). I am two years old. I seldom (几乎不) drink water. I like sleeping in the tree. My phone number is 81093456. Welcome to visit me.
	Good morning! My name is Mickey. I am from the USA. I have big ears and eyes. I have a good friend. His name is Donald Duck, but he is in America now. I am always happy. Do you like me? Now I am in Shanghai. My phone number is 96384251.
	Nice to meet you, everyone. I am Panda. I live in Sichuan, China. I am three years old. I like eating bamboo. My dream (梦想) is to take a colour photo. Do you like me? My phone number is 71368997. Welcome to Sichuan.

Beep! Beep! Barcode technology makes it faster and easier to buy things in stores.

You’ve probably seen the black-and-white zebra stripes on product packaging. But can you imagine this great invention is more than 50 years old? In 1971, engineer George Laurer came up with a barcode that could be printed on food labels. Later, he designed the Universal Product Code barcode, which was used by many supermarket companies starting in 1973, according to The New York Times. Before this, cashiers who received and paid out money in shops had to record prices by hand.

Time has proven it to be a great invention. Today, barcodes are scanned over 6 billion times every day and used by 2 million companies worldwide, PR Newswire reported.

What information does a barcode include? Where the product comes from, where it has been, its price, expiration date...you name it. It can also help stores keep track of their products. For example, if there are 10 boxes of milk and a customer buys one, it will be recorded so that the store owner knows there are nine boxes left. In the 1980s, libraries started using barcodes to keep track of books in this way.

The next generation of barcodes, such as QR codes, can hold more information. “They can tell customers if a product contains allergens or if it is organic. This provides customers with a greater level of trust in the products they buy,” said GS 1, an organization that develops global barcode standards.

【推荐2】Do you know the two lovely mascots? You may know the five “Fuwa” dolls from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. On September 17th of last year, the two lovely mascots first showed on TV. Now, let’s see who they are.

Look at the panda! It looks like an astronaut. It wears an ice shell (冰壳) and looks fat, so we call it “Bing Dwen Dwen”. White is the color of ice and snow. “Bing Dwen Dwen” likes ice sports very much and is good at them. That’s why it is the mascot of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

Do you think the red mascot looks like a lantern? The lantern’s name is “Shuey Rhon Rhon”. When the Chinese New Year comes, people always make or buy red lanterns. Red is the color of hope and good luck, so people think their dreams will come true in the new year. “Shuey Rhon Rhon” can give players hope and help them do well in the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympic Games(残奥会).

Many people in different countries like the two mascots very much, and they show their love for them on the Internet.

【推荐3】No one knows when the first kite was made. The first record of a kite was more than 2,000 years ago in China. Han Xin, the leader of an army, wanted to bring down a king. He decided to dig a tunnel into the king’s palace. He flew a kite over the wall of the palace to make sure the length of its string. In this way, he could determine how long the tunnel should be. His men in the tunnel took the kite string with them. When they reached the end of the string, they knew to dig up.

Kites have been flown in Japan for hundreds of years. In the 1700s, kites were flown in autumn to give thanks for a good harvest. They were also flown to send good wishes to couples who had their first son. Today in Japan, kites are often flown as part of a celebration, such as the beginning of a new year. And kite festivals are held each year in many parts of the country.

Kites have been used for scientific purposes in the western world. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin tied a key to a kite and flew it in a storm to find out that lightening was a form of electricity. In the 1890s, Lawrence Hargrave invented the box kite to test ideas about flight. From 1898 until 1933, the United States Weather Bureau(气象局) used box kites to collect weather data. The Wright brothers also experimented(试验) with kites, and what they learned helped them make the first airplane flight in 1903.

People usually call chess the game of kings. It has been around for a long time. People play it for over 500 years. Chess is from an older game in India. The chess we play today is from Europe(欧洲).

Chess is a two-player game. One player uses the white pieces. The other uses the black pieces. Each piece moves in a special way. One piece is called the king. Each player has one. The players take turns to move their pieces. If a player lands on a piece, he or she takes it. The game ends when a player loses his or her king. There are a few more rules, but those are the important rules.

Some people think that chess is more than a game. They think that it makes the mind stronger. Good chess players use their brains (大脑). They take their time. They think about what will happen next. These skills are useful in life and in chess. Chess is kind of like exercise for the mind.

【推荐2】To stay healthy and fit, Chinese students do group exercises every day at school. Most of you probably do the same set of exercises. But some school exercises have grown popular online because of their local and innovative (创新的) designs. Let’s check one of them out!

Singing in Sichuan dialects (方言) with energetic movements and mask-changing is not just a Sichuan Opera performance. It’s the daily exercise for students of Mianyang Foreign Languages Experimental School in Sichuan Province.

“Sichuan Opera is a local opera, and it is now facing a challenge (挑战) in inheritance (传承). So, we worked with the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center of Mianyang to create a simple and easy-to-learn Sichuan Opera exercise,” said Shen Junhua, who is organising the school’s exercise.

According to Shen, this new type of exercise has been practiced since 2017 and has been popular among students. When students enter the school, they will spend several weeks practicing it. At present, almost all of the students and teachers have mastered it.

“In fact, we had hardly heard of Sichuan Opera before teachers taught us how to do the Sichuan Opera exercise,” said Li Yangwen, 14, an eighth grade student who also joined the school’s Sichuan Opera club out of interest. “It’s very different from normal exercises. After practicing it, we found it very beautiful and became interested in it. Now, almost all of the students look forward to our daily exercise time and feel excited to do it.”

“By mixing opera with daily exercise, the daily class activity allows students to understand Sichuan Opera’s culture”, Shen said. After years of continuous effort to spread the traditional culture, the younger generation (一代人) will finally understand it.

【推荐3】Do you know when restaurants were invented? The first restaurants were invented thousands of years ago. However, they were very different from the restaurants today.

The first restaurants were in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. These restaurants served food in large stone bowls. People didn’t order food from a menu. Everyone used to share the food from big bowls. People believe that these places were very popular because most homes in ancient Greece and ancient Rome didn’t have kitchens. Also, people didn’t have to store food at home if they ate their meals at these restaurants.

Later, restaurants began to open in China. In the early 1100s, more than 1 million people lived in the city of Hangzhou, China. It was a very busy city, and people had money. All of these people had to eat. Smart cooks started cooking and selling food along very big streets in the city. Unlike in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, people in China could choose food from a menu. They didn’t have to eat the same food as everyone else.

For the next several centuries, there were restaurants all over the world. People could buy food on the street or at inns—small hotels. Then in the middle of the 1700s, restaurants started opening in Paris. These restaurants were more similar to the restaurants we know today. There was a bigger variety of food, and eating in these restaurants was a more enjoyable experience. In the 19th century, trains made travel much faster and simpler. In the end, this kind of restaurant began to appear all over Europe and in other parts of the world.

Now, restaurants are everywhere. You can buy different kinds of food. You can have food sent to your door.