【推荐1】“I’m bored.” You may turn your nose up at（对……嗤之以鼻） the words when a child says so. In fact, boredom is generally viewed as an unpleasant emotional state. How can anyone claim boredom when there’s so much that can and should be done?

But boredom is something to experience. Despite the lesson most adults tell you—boredom is for boring people—boredom is useful. It’s good for you.

If kids don’t figure this out early on, they’re in for（免不了遭受） a not-so-pleasant surprise in the future. Life isn’t meant to be full of amusements（乐趣）.“That’s right,” a mother says to her daughter in the novel Where’d You Go, Bernadette. “You are bored. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it’s boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it’s on you to make life interesting, the better off you’ll be.”

People used to accept that much of life was boring. But things happen when you’re bored. Once you’ve truly felt bored, you find yourself on the route to discovery. This is why so many useful ideas occur in the shower, when you’re held captive（被困住）to a routine activity. You let your mind wander and follow it where it goes.

Of course, it’s not really the boredom itself that’s important; it’s what we do with it, when you reach your breaking point, boredom teaches you to make something happen for yourself.

Teaching children to endure boredom will prepare them for a more realistic future. One day, even in a job they otherwise love, our kids may have to check spreadsheets（电子数据表）, or assist robots at a vast Internet-ready warehouse.

This sounds boring, you might conclude. It sounds like work, and it sounds like life. Perhaps we should get used to boredom again, and use it to our benefit.

【推荐2】① The way we spend our time can be put into three “bottles”. These are the Necessary Tasks Bottle (必要任务瓶), the Voluntary Tasks Bottle (志愿任务瓶) and the Happiness Bottle.

②Every day, we spend time filling the Necessary Tasks Bottle with useful things, like making money, doing housework, and paying bills.

③We then fill another bottle with Voluntary Tasks. These are things we do for others, we may not enjoy, but we do them anyway. This bottle gets filled with tasks like taking children to activities, cooking family meals, and washing clothes for family.

④However, we often forget to fill the third bottle—the Happiness Bottle. This is the bottle we fill with activities that make us happy. Is your Happiness Bottle sometimes empty at the end of the day? Between doing all the Necessary and Voluntary Tasks, time flies by, and before we know, it is time for bed. We all have days like that.

⑤This is why each day we have to try to fill our Happiness Bottle. I fill mine by going to the dancing class. And I always leave classes more happily than when I arrive. This week, I had fun joining in a guitar practice in my neighborhood. We showed our musical talent and practiced music for charity (慈善). It was a time of fun, friendship and music-making. At the end of the evening, my Happiness Bottle was filled to top.

⑥The challenge (挑战) for each of us is to not let the day go by without filling our Happiness Bottle. That takes some planning. Many of us probably need to pencil happiness activities into our schedule (日程表): If we don’t do that, we will have to fill our schedule with those Necessary and Voluntary Tasks.

⑦Think about how your time is being spent. Are you doing enough activities that bring joy to your life? Or are the Necessary and Voluntary Tasks using up all your time? At the end of the day, hopefully we’ve done all we can to make sure that our Happiness Bottle is filled.

A．

B．

C．

D．

【推荐3】Lily wanted to do a project. “What about making a time line?” her father asked. “That is a list of important events（事件）in your life.”

“Sure!” Lily answered. “Can you show me how?”

Lily’s dad gave her a piece of paper, a pencil, and a ruler. She held the pencil and used the ruler to draw a straight line. Then her father marked a small line across the longer line at the left end. Above the small line, he wrote “Lily is born.”

“Why did you make that small line at the left end, Dad?” Lily asked.

“On a time line, events are ordered from left to right. The first event is placed on the left end and the last event is placed on the right end.”

Lily then wrote the month, day, and year of her birthday under the first, her dad drew another small line to the right of the first small line. He wrote, “Lily learns to walk” above that line. Then he marked another small line to the right of the second small line. Above this line he wrote “Lily starts school”.

“What about when I learned to ride my bike?” asked Lily.

“Right! We should add that,” her dad said.

“I want to add pictures,” Lily told her dad. She made a drawing of herself riding a bike and put it on the paper. Her dad put a photo of Lily’s first day of school on the time line, too.

Now their work was done. Lily said, “That time line is a picture of my life.” “It is a picture of your life so far.” her dad added. “There is a lot more to come!”

A．	B．
C．	D．

【推荐1】I had hidden the long black bag in the garage for the past two days. Tonight, in the dark, I would finally take it away. If everything went OK, it would be done by morning. But I had to be sure no one, not even my wife, saw me.

It was more difficult to get away from the party than I expected. And I had to get the kids to sleep. That was never easy at any time and tonight it was even more difficult. As usual, I read them a bedtime story, but I had to stop myself reading too quickly or they would learn my secret.

Silence finally came, and feeling like a thief in the night, I went out of the house and into the garage. I dragged the bag out from its hiding place and took it into the garden. I was worried that my neighbors might see me and call the police.

It was already eleven o'clock. By the light of the moon I started working, trying to make as little noise as possible. After much effort, my work was finally completed. I looked down at my watch. It was exactly 4:00 am.

Then I went inside to have a shower and get a few hours of sleep. It wouldn't be long now before the kids would rush into my room and wake me up to tell me about the new tree house Father Christmas had brought them this year.

【推荐3】Every year on 15th October, over 200 million people around the world take part in GlobalHandwashing Day.     1    .Well, research shows that not enough people often wash theirhands with soap. Experts believe that leads to the deaths of millions of people every year.Sidibe, a public health expert says soap is "the most beautiful invention in public health"    2    Handwashing with soap prevents babies from getting ill and keeps children healthy at school.    3    This is partly because there aren't enough resources in poorer countries, butit's also because for many people, handwashing is simply not part of their everyday life. It's not easy to get people to change habits they learned in early childhood—but this is what Global Handwashing Day wants to do.

In 2008, the Indian cricket team joined around 100 million Indian schoolchildren in washing their hands to promote the first ever Global Handwashing Day.    4     Today, local and national leaders continue to use the day to spread the message about the importance of clean hands.    5    

【推荐1】Kelly is a very special student in my class. Her father is an American, and her mother is a Chinese from Hong Kong. Kelly was born in New York and finished elementary school there. Then the family decided to move to Taiwan because Kelly’s father found a new job in Taipei. Kelly could speak only English, but her parents did not send her to a special school for foreign children. They wanted her to study in a regular junior high school and to make friends with the local students.

Kelly has to work very hard at school. English is easy for her, of course. Math is OK, too. But Chinese and history are big headaches for her because she cannot read the books in Chinese. She often comes to me, her English teacher, to ask questions about Chinese and history. She is trying very hard, and I believe she will do well in Taiwan.

【推荐2】When Joe’s children grew up and moved to different cities, he lived in a small village. He had 4 grandchildren and they often visited him during their holidays.

It was the vacation time and Joe was waiting for them to arrive. He was preparing their favorite food and cleaning the house. However, he lost his watch when he was busy. His dead wife gave it to him when their first child was born. Joe treasured (珍爱) the watch very much (特别) after his wife’s death. The next day, he was very sad,” Dear children

The children looked for it everywhere in the house for more than 2 hours, but they didn’t find it. So Joe asked the children to stop looking for it.

One of his grandsons sat there quietly. The other children reached him and asked him what was going on. He asked them not to make any noise. He sat there for about 15 minutes and then found the watch. He ran to his grandfather with the watch. Joe was surprised and asked how he was able to find it. The little boy replied, “I sat there without making a noise. After a few minutes, I heard the sound of the watch.” Joe hugged and thanked the little boy.

【推荐2】Near the village, there is an old famous temple. Some people want to build a new house where the temple now stands, because they can find no other area to build them, while others disagree with them. They meet to decide how to solve the problem. Here are their opinions about it.

The expert wants to protect the temple and believes that there are some interesting things buried in the ground. If it is destroyed or moved, people may never learn about how people lived in the past.

The businessman thinks that the houses should be built. History is important, but we must think about the future. The village needs development and building new houses will offer jobs to hundreds of people.

Villager A says, “We should build the new houses because we need houses to live in.”

Villager B says, “We should protect the temple because it can attract many tourists to come for a visit. If the temple is destroyed or moved, we will lose a lot of business.”

The village leader thinks that he has a duty to make life better for the villagers. They need jobs and new houses. He also thinks the cultural site (遗迹) is important and they should be careful with it as well.

【推荐3】On Saturday morning, every boy in town was happy, except Tom Sawyer. Tom’s aunt said he had to paint the fence(围栏). It was thirty yards long and three yards high! When he was working, some boys came along and made fun of him.

Ben was the first one who came happily with an apple in his hand.

“I’m going swimming,” said Ben. “Do you want to come? Oh, you have to work, don’t you?”

Tom got a little angry, but soon he had a wonderful idea.

“Work?” he said. “I don’t think this is work. It’s fun. Does a boy get a chance like this every day?”

Ben thought about this. He was watching Tom’s every move and was getting more and more interested.

After a while, he said, “Tom, will you let me do some painting?”

“No way. You see, Aunt Polly wants it to be done properly. I’m the only one that can do it right.”

“Oh, please, Tom,” begged(恳求) Ben. “I’ll be really careful. Let me try! I’ll give you my apple in return.”

“Well, all right, Ben,” said Tom. “But you must be careful.”

He gave Ben his brush with worry on his face but joy in his heart. He started to eat Ben’s apple.

All day, boys passed by and wanted to paint. When Ben got tired, Billy began to paint. He gave Tom his favorite kite. Then Johnny gave him twelve marbles(玻璃球), and so on.

That afternoon, Tom got many toys, and the fence got three coats of paint. Aunt Polly was so pleased when she saw the painted fence that she gave him a large cake!