1 . Nellie and I were born only a few days apart, so every year we plan a birthday party together. This year, our birthday theme was “Discover the Pyramids”.

“What about inviting Mary?” Nellie asked.

Mary was a loner, and hadn’t made many friends, but she was better at Math Pyramid than anyone else in class.

“Hmm, she wears the same old trousers every day. How could she even afford a party dress?”

After school the next day, Nellie handed me a box. “What’s that?” I asked.

“My birthday gift from my aunt. I thought it would be nice to give this to Mary,” Nellie said.

I opened the box. Inside was a gift certificate (礼品券) for our favorite clothing store.

“Wow,” I gasped. We both knew how many cute clothes that would buy.

“So, are we going to just hand it to her?”

“How embarrassing (尴尬的) that would be!” Nellie answered.

She was right. Mary would be totally embarrassed if we gave her money for clothes.

“What if we ask our teacher…”

“Wait a second. I have an idea.” Nellie said.

“What? What?”

“I’m not going to tell you!”

On the day of our party, Mary arrived, with no surprise—the very old brown trousers.

We sang, danced and ate biscuits. “And now for the big prize game”, Nellie said. “Big prize”?

My mouth dropped. This was not in the plan.

“The big prize game is like this: Tom and Sam were building pyramids……If their pyramids had to be 60 feet high, who would finish first?”

A Math game. Of course! Nellie winked (眨眼示意) at me. No one was surprised when Mary came up with the answer before anyone else and walked off with the box.

The next week, Mary wore a new pair of trousers, and even a new dress. The whole time she had a big smile on her face.

And so did we.

2 . A bus stops at a small bus stop. A man is hungry and he wants to buy some cakes. It’s raining hard. He doesn’t want to go out in the rain. He sees a boy. “Come here, boy!” he cries. “Do you know how much the cakes are?” The boy says yes. The man gives the boy four dollars and asks him to buy two cakes. “One is for you and one is for me.” Three minutes later, the boy comes back. He’s eating a cake. He gives the man two dollars and says, “Sorry, there is only one cake left.”

4 . When I first come to America, I live with a family. In the family there are Mr. Brown, Mrs. Brown and three little kids. They go to the school close to their house. I help them do some housework for 15 hours from Monday to Friday. I get three meals and a room to live in. My work is to walk the kids to school in the morning, pick up (接) the kids from school in the afternoon and do some work around the house. Most of the time I work inside (在……里面) the house doing some cleaning and washing. I don’t help with garden work, but only when Mr. Brown and Mrs. Brown get very busy in the garden.

One day, they are busy with the new swimming pool in the garden. I am on the second floor cleaning the floor. When I hear a call from the end of the swimming pool, I run out of the door and hear Mr. Brown say, “Jane, do you have time?” “They must need some help.” I say to myself. Then I run quickly to the end of the swimming pool and ask Mr. Brown, “How can I help?” Then Mr. Brown says, “Do you have the time?” I begin laughing at myself (笑自己) and tell him the time. I don’t hear the word clearly and don’t get what he says at the beginning.

Now I am very careful when people are saying “have time” or “have the time”. Then I can give the right answer.

6 . Children today would rather read, do housework or even do homework than play outside—and they get out half as much as their parents did when they were young.

According to a UK study, those growing up during the 1970s and 1980s enjoying more than two hours of outdoor activities each weekday, and nine hours on weekends—whatever the weather is. But their children play outside for just over one hour each weekday, and fewer than five hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

So, the UK started an activity to encourage children to give up 30 minutes of screen time a day to play outdoors.

The Wild Network, born on September 25, 2013, is joined by more than 300 organizations, large or small. It tries to attract children away from television and computer screen and into woods and parks.

It is the biggest ever activity to reconnect children with nature and outdoor activities, and it plans to help improve children’s health.

Suggestions on how to get more time in nature including collecting fruits, camping, watching autumn color on trees and so on.

This is not the first time the message of less screen, more play has been brought up. Children in the 1980s were encouraged todo the sameby BBC TV showWhy Don’ You, which encouraged children to “turn off your TV set, and go to do something less boring instead”.

You can learn more about the activity by visitinghttp: //www. Project wild thing.com.

8 . “What are you busy with, mom?” a 6-year-old girl asked her mother one day.

“Making dinner for our neighbor,” her mother answered.

“Why?” the girl asked.

“She lost her daughter last month. She’s quite sad now. We should take care of her,” her mother said.

“Why does she need our care?” the girl asked again.

“Because she can’t do the same things again with her daughter. She doesn’t know what to do. Even little things like making dinner and cleaning the house are hard for her to do now. Maybe you can think of a way to help her yourself,” said her mother.

The little girl thought about this for some time. She wanted to know what she could do. She decided to visit her neighbor.

She knocked on the door. The woman came to the door, looking quite tired and sad.

“Can I help you?” the neighbor asked.

“My mom told me you’re sad because you lost your daughter...” the girl said slowly as she gave a bandage (绷带) to her neighbor. “Put this on your chest (胸口). Maybe then your will feel better.”

The neighbor was soon moved to tears. She gave the girl a big hug and said, “Thank you. This bandage will help more than you even know.”

9 . How many birthdays do you have every year? Most of you just have one, right? Well, the Queen (女王) of England is different. She has different time’s birthdays a year: the real birthday and the official (官方) birthday.

Her real birthday is on April 21. On her birthday, she has a big dinner at home, and then she takes a photo with her family. After that, she reads the letters people write to her.

In England, there’s always parade (游行) for the Queen’s birthday. This big, outdoor parade first started in 1748. But in April, the weather in England is very rainy and cold. So in 1905, the Queen had her second birthday in June because the weather is nice. And the Queen wanted it to be on a Saturday. That’s because it’s easy for everyone to join the parade. And this year, her official birthday is on June 11.

10 . It’s a Sunday morning. Linda goes shopping in a supermarket. It’s very big. All the things there are very cheap because it’s the first day for the supermarket, and there is a big sale.

There are a lot of people in the supermarket. And it is very crowded. Linda sees a little girl crying. She can’t find her grandma.

“What’s your grandma’s name?” asks Linda.

The little girl doesn’t know. She doesn’t know her grandma’s telephone number either.

Linda takes the little girl to the manager’s(经理的) office. “Don’t worry. Just stay with us and we can help you find your grandma on the radio.” says the manager.

A few minutes later, an old woman comes. The little girl finds her grandma at last.

“Thank you so much!” The grandma says to Linda and the manager.

Linda is very happy because she can do something to help others.