3 . Books That Celebrate Diverse Holidays and Traditions

It’s important to remember there are a diverse set of holidays available to explore. Below are a few books that help introduce children to different holiday cultures and traditions.

Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto, illustrated by Ed Martinez

While helping her mother with Christmas celebration, Maria is tempted to try on her mother’s diamond ring. After getting caught up in the joy of the holiday and playing with her cousins, Maria realizes the ring is missing! That’s when she and her cousins come up with a plan to eat all of the tamales, in hopes of finding the ring.

Together for Kwanzaa by Juwanda G. Ford, illustrated by Shelly Hehenberger

This is a story about a little girl named Kayla who wants to see her older brother Khari come home so they can celebrate Kwanzaa together as a family. Khari is stuck at college when a snowstorm hits and his car breaks down. Will he make it home in time for Kwanzaa?

A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman

This book is a funny, nostalgic tale of Christmas Eve afternoon through Christmas night in Wales, and is full of unique imagery and poetic prose. It will arouse a sense of familiarity for some young readers while introducing them to different aspects of Christmas traditions.

We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell, illustrated by Frane Lessac

The word otsaliheliga is used by members of the Cherokee Nation to express gratitude. This is an amazing story that describes a journey through the seasons with a modern-day Cherokee family. Cherokee history and traditions are also woven into the story in a very kid-friendly way.

4 . Imagine driving behind a huge truck shooting clouds of smoke into the air while your new fully electric vehicle cleans up its carbon emissions (排放). This dream may soon be a reality. A team of students in the Netherlands has created an electric car that not only doesn’t produce carbon dioxide when driving, but actually pulls it out of the air.

The two-seater sports car was designed and built in less than a year by a team of 32 students at Eindhoven University of Technology. Called “ZEM”, which stands for “zero emission mobility”, the car is equipped with special devices that remove carbon dioxide from the air as it drives. The team says if ZEM is driven about 32,000 kilometers, it can remove 2 kilograms of carbon dioxide from the air. That’s not a huge amount. The team calculates that 10 ZEM cars on the road for a year would remove as much carbon dioxide as a typical tree does during that time. However, they also point out that there are over a billion passenger cars in the world that could be using this technology. And if a billion cars were removing carbon dioxide instead of producing it, the result would be huge.

ZEM also has several other innovations that help to make it more capable of being sustained: the car’s frame and panels (面板) are 3D printed to reduce waste; it was built using recycled and recyclable materials; and it can be easily taken apart so that many of its parts can be reused. ZEM’s battery is also reusable, and has another handy feature: it can be charged with solar panels on the car’s roof—and can even be used to provide power to your house when the car isn’t on the road.

According to the statistics, transportation was responsible for over 20% of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2020—and of those emissions, cars were responsible for 41%. The Eindhoven team says its goal is to challenge the electric car industry: If 32 students can build a car like this in less than a year, then surely car manufacturers (生产商) are expected to adopt these innovations, too.

6 . Have you tried to run or walk for exercise and then given up? If you answered yes, you should try a new kind of exercise: aquatic (水中的) exercise. Aquatic exercise is like exercise on land, but you do it in a swimming pool. More and more people are trying aquatic exercise now.

Aquatic exercise feels easier than exercising on land. Why? You weigh about 90% less in the pool. It is better for your knees than running or walking. Water is about 1,000 times thicker and heavier than air. To move through the water, your body has to work four times as hard. As a result, you can burn more calories (卡路里).

In fact, most people say they feel more relaxed in the water. They stop thinking about the things that make them worried. They feel in control of their bodies. The cool, quiet environment makes them feel good.

But what if you are afraid of the water? No problem! There is nothing to worry about. Aquatic exercise is safe and easy to learn. It doesn’t require any special skills. You don’t even need to know how to swim. Aquatic exercise is for everyone.

7 . For my daughter's 19th birthday, we bought her tickets to go and see Linkin Park, as they were playing in our city. We didn't really have the ________ but we knew how much this band meant to her.

The night before she was like a ________ at Christmas. Every so often she got up and came to ________ with us, because she couldn't ________ . On the night of the concert it was good to see her so ________ and excited, as she and her boyfriend set off.

Needless to say when they ________ after midnight, with T-shirts and lots of pictures of the band, ________ her telling about how fantastic they had been, we knew the money had been well ________ . This will be a memory she would never forget, and nor would we.

________ full of excitement from the night before, the following day they ________ to go shopping on the other side of the city. My husband and I laughed, loving the fact that she had not ________   that quality as she grew up.

Later that day they returned, with faces full of happiness and warmth. They presented my husband and me with a ________ each. On each present were the words "Because you are the ________ mum/dad in the world. "When we expressed our thanks and told her she didn't have to, we asked her why she had bought us gifts. Her answer was simply "Just because I love you."

This wasn't something ________ from our daughter; she had always given us gifts when she wanted to express her ________ , and each gift was always a welcome surprise. It could have been anything, it wouldn't have mattered, and it was the act itself and the feelings behind it.

10 . Jonathan Jones, 12, was overcome with emotion after his principal, who is also color blind, let him _______ his unique glasses during science class last week.

As soon as Jones put the glasses on, he appeared to be immediately _______. He initially smiled and laughed, but he _______ moments later. He then walked around the classroom excitedly, _______ the now – vivid colors around him.

“I was feeling joy that I could _______see all this color...and a little bit of _______ that I couldn’t see color my whole life,” Jonathan told ABC news.

The boy’s mother posted a(n) _______ of Jonathan seeing color for the first time online and started a GoFundMe campaign to buy a pair of the unique glasses for Jonathan, which reportedly cost $ 350. However, so many people were _______ by Jonathan’s story, and the campaign actually ended up _______ more than $ 25, 000.

She wrote “After posting the video, we’ve been touched by how many __________ people have wanted to help him. We’ve had __________ pairs donated to Jonathan and will use 100% of donated funds to purchase color blind glasses for those who can’t __________ them.” “The glasses company will __________ every pair we purchase with a free pair, which doubles the number of people we can __________,” she continued.

For Jonathan, with the new glasses comes a new __________ of the world. He said his favorite color is blue and he’s excited to visit the Caribbean this winter so he can see the ocean in all its glory.