2 . There are many interesting things around the world. Here is something fun to visit.

	The Piano House This House in Huainan City of An Hui Province looks like a large piano, with a glass violin in the middle. Some university students in Hefei built it and hoped to bring the city plenty of tourists. It works! Now it has become one of the favorites of tourists in China. If you are a music lover, don’t miss it.
	Singing Roads In Japan, some roads can play music as cars travel over them. Grooves are carefully cut into the road. The spaces between the grooves make different music as cars touch therm. The closer the grooves are, the louder the music will be. Drivers can hear the beautiful songs best when driving at 50 kilometers an hour. And all say they can make them keep wide-awake when they feel tired.
	Mr. Toilet House This large building in South Korea was built by Mr. Toilet in 2007. His real name is Sim. Sim built it to tell people how important toilets are to the health of a society. There is a Children Museum inside. And now it is a popular place for school learning trips and students love it. Opening time: Tuesday-Sunday, March-October 10:00-18:00; November-February 10:00-17:00. Closed on Mondays.

3 . Mobile phones are one of the most useful inventions of the last 50 years, but not everything that is said about them is good. Mobile phones are usually to blame* for a number of things: from headaches to house fires. One theory even blames mobile phones for the disappearance* of bees!

7 . How could we tell time if there were no watches or clocks anywhere in the world?

The sun is probably the world’s first “clock”, except in the far north, where the Eskimos live. There, it’s dark most of the winter, and light most of the summer. But in most of the world, people have used the sun as a clock. Even today, if you don’t have a clock, you can still know that when the sun shines, it’s day and when it’s dark, it’s night. The sun can also tell you if it’s morning, noon, or afternoon.

People who live near the sea can tell time from the tides. In the daytime, for about six hours, the water rises higher and higher on the beach. And then it goes down and down for about six hours. The same thing happens again at night. There are two high tides and two low tides every 24 hours.

Seamen on the ship learn how to tell time by looking at the moon and the stars. The whole sky is their clock.

In some places in the world the wind comes up at about the same time every day or changes direction or stops blowing. In these places the wind can be the clock.

A sand clock is an even better clock. If you had fine dry sand in a glass shaped like the one in the picture, you would have what is called an hourglass. The sand in the hourglass goes from the top part to the bottom in exactly one hour. When the hourglass is turned over, the sand will take another hour to go back again.

Emperor penguins are the largest penguins on the earth. The largest emperor penguin is over a meter tall and up to 40 kilograms heavy.

For many months each year, emperors live near the sea in large groups called colonies. However, in May, the weather gets colder and ice covers large part of the sea. Each colony moves many kilometers from the water. There, each mother penguin lays just one egg. Then all the hungry mothers must walk back to the sea to find food. The father penguins put their eggs on top of their feet, under a special piece of skin called the brood pouch.

Working together

For two months, the father penguins keep the eggs safe and warm. They do this through some of the coldest weather on Earth. By July, it is winter in Antarctica. Most animals leave for warmer places, but the father penguins stay. In this time, without food, a father penguin can lose almost half of his body weight, so he is thinner.

New Life

By August, the babies begin to hatch. The mother penguin returns just in time to see her baby come out of its egg. The chick is then moved to her brood pouch. This can be difficult. If the chick falls, it may freeze quickly because of the really cold weather, so the penguin parents must be very careful. Once the chick goes into its mother’s brood pouch, the father penguin can go back to the sea to find food.

Growing up

Over the next few months, penguin parents take turns going to the sea for food. They each make the trip over a few times, bringing back food for the chick. The chick grows quickly and is always hungry.

Into the Water

By December, winter is ending. The chick is five months old and can live by itself. Soon it goes into the water for the first time. It will swim and eat. By next April, it goes back here. After a few more years, it, too, will start its own family.

9 . Hi, I am Mary. I am a middle school student. My school is a very beautiful place. There is a big library with books of all subjects in my school. There are a lot of storybooks and newspapers in the library too. It is in the classroom building.

In the library, there are rows of tables and chairs. It looks very clean. And it’s easy for students to find books. We can sit there to read books or borrow books from it. We can take two or five books at a time and we must give back the books in seven days.

Our library teacher is a nice woman. She is friendly to all students. We all like her. She always helps us find books. When we ask her some questions about book, she is happy to answer.

I like reading books. Every day I go to the library to read books. I love to visit my school library. It’s a good place to read and study.