2 . Most kids grow up learning they cannot draw on the walls.     1     This summer, group of culture addicts,artists and community organizers are inviting New Yorkers to write all over the walls of an old house on Governor's Island.

The project is called Writing On It All,and it's a participatory writing project and artistic experiment that has happened on Governor's Island every summer since 2013.

＂Most of the participants are people who are just walking by or are on the island for other reasons.     2    ”Alexandra Chasin,artistic director of Writing On It All,tells Smithsonian.com.

The 2016 season runs through June 26 and features sessions facilitated by everyone from dancers to domestic workers.     3    This year,the programs range from one that turns the house into a collaborative essay to one that explores the meaning of exile(背井离乡）。

    4     Now known as"New York's shared space for art and play,"the island,which lies between Manhattan and Brooklyn in Upper New York Bay,is closed to cars but open to summer tourists who flock for festivals,picnics,adventures,as well as these"legal graffiti(涂鸦）”Sessions.

    5     So far,participants have ranged in age from 2 to 85.Though Chasin says the focus of the work is on the activity of writing,rather than the text that expresses participants' inner world, some of the work that comes out of the sessions has stuck with her.

3 . About 43 years ago, spotted an advertisement in the paper for the YMCA wilderness program.     1     My first experience was a boat trip. I still have the images of sunrises and sunsets with all the beautiful colours on Lake of the Woods.

    2     Even now I can feel the cold water dripping down my arm as we sat in the boat pulling the paddles awkwardly through running water. It was my first experience in a boat and my arms became tired after many hours of paddling.

We stopped for lunch in the boat by gathering all the boats together.     3    

At night it was time to camp at our site picked out by our guide. There we learned to start campfires and cook some of our meals. This is where fell in love with noodles.     4     We cleaned up our mess and put up our tents and slept on the ground. We learned to carry the heavy packs to our next destination. I developed a sense of accomplishment and had arm muscles after that trip.

There were no phones, makeup, hair dryers... just us and the bush. We came from different backgrounds with different personalities and we all had to work together as a group.

    5    . I kept a journal from that second trip and often go back to it.

4 . Children's Games in Ancient China

Unlike the children nowadays, the children during ancient times didn't have smart phone, iPad or computer to entertain(娱乐) themselves.     1     Let's take a look.

Flying kites

Kites have quite a long history. The earliest kites were made of wood, instead of paper. Nowadays, the three most famous kites are the Beijing kite, Tianjin kite and Weifang kite.     2     For example, the swallow-shaped kite is a well-known Beijing style.

Playing hide-and-seek

Hide-and-seek is a traditional game for children, popular around the nation. Even nowadays, many children like playing it. There are two ways to play. One way is covering a child's eyes while other kids run around to tease(戏弄) him.     3    

    4    

The closest thing to watching a film or television for entertainment during ancient times was going to see a shadow play. Folk artists manipulate puppets behind the screen, narrating stories and accompanied by music.

Setting off firecrackers(鞭炮)

Firecrackers have a history of more than 2,000 years. It is said that there was a beast (野兽)named Nian in ancient China.     5     After gunpowder was invented, it gradually replaced the bamboo joint cracker. Crackers are still set off during Spring Festival to symbolize auspiciousness(吉利).

5 . Hoverboards(电动滑板）were among the most popular Christmas gifts of 2015. They may have also been most dangerous gifts of 2015.

A true hoverboard looks like a skateboard without wheels. To “hover” means to float in the air without moving much in any direction. The popularity of hoverboards began in the 1980s, with the “Back to the Future” movies. Characters in the second and third films used hoverboards as transportation.

This year’s popular hoverboards, however, do not actually hover. They have wheels. And? as it turns out, they are not easy to use.

Adults and children around the world suffered hoverboard-related injuries over the weekend. Many posted pictures of the damage on social media. Twitter user David Douglas posted a photo of both him and a young girl with the broken arms they suffered on Christmas Day. And another user Erin Rafferty uploaded a video of her mother falling off a hoverboard, with the caption, “Who let mom on the hoverboard?”

Falling is not the only risk with some hoverboards. They are also a fire risk. At one store in Texas, an employee tried to fix a hoverboard a customer brought in. The hoverboard then caught fire.

Studies suggest that some hoverboard brands have defective batteries or plugs.

Many major airlines worldwide have banned hoverboards because of the fire risk. But some passengers did not hear the news. Australian actor Russell Crowesaid on Monday about his disappointment that Virgin Australia Airlines did not permit his children to take their hoverboards on the plane.

Major retailers (零售商）are also taking steps to improve the safety of the hoverboards they sell. Amazon in the United States now only sells hoverboards from brands that have submitted safety standard documents. The UK’s Amazon no longer sells hoverboards. It has also advised customers who bought unsafe brands of hoverboards to throw them away.

6 . My husband and I are saving thousands of dollars every year by growing our own vegetables in our backyard. We learn something new every year and this website has been made to share tips with other people that would like to grow some of their own food.

It’s true that if you are starting from fresh, it will cost a little bit of money to get started. However, once everything is set up, the cost is very small and the rewards are huge. The size of your family and how many vegetables you eat determine exactly how much money you can save every year. We do a lot of juicing, so we are saving thousands of dollars by growing some carefully selected greens.

There is an amazing sense of accomplishment when you grow your own vegetables. Vegetables out of your vegetable garden don’t get any fresher, tastier or more satisfying. The whole family can get involved in this hobby and kids will learn where food comes from and appreciate nature even more.

Our approach to vegetable gardening is completely different from the normal one. We are doing it in the lazy way with zero digging and fertilizing(施肥). The way we grow our vegetables is to emulate natural ecosystems. No rows of carrots can be found in our garden beds. Rain forests seem to do just fine without human interference(干预) or having plants sown in rows, so we have applied the same principle to our vegetable garden and we care producing more vegetables than ever.

By copying nature we spend little time working in the vegetable garden but get a much better crop than previous years when we followed the rules. What can I say? We’re such rebels.(叛逆者）

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7 . When I was nine years old, I loved to go fishing with my dad. But the only thing that wasn’t very fun about it was that he could catch many fish while I couldn’t catch anything. I usually got pretty upset and kept asking him why. He always answered, “Son, if you want to catch a fish, you have to think like a fish.” I remember being even more upset then because, “I’m not a fish!” I didn’t know how to think like a fish. Besides, I reasoned, how could what I think influence what a fish does?

As I got a little older I began to understand what my dad really meant. So, I read some books on fish. And I even joined the local fishing club and started attending the monthly meetings. I learned that a fish is a cold-blooded animal and therefore is very sensitive to water temperature. That is why fish prefer shallow water to deep water because the former is warmer. Besides, water is usually warmer in direct sunlight than in the shade. Yet, fish don’t have any eyelids(眼皮) and the sun hurts their eyes… The more I understood fish, the more I became effective at finding and catching them.

When I grew up and entered the business world, I remember hearing my first boss say, “We all need to think like salespeople.” But it didn’t completely make sense. My dad never once said, “If you want to catch a fish you need to think like a fisherman.” What he said was, “You need to think like a fish.” Years later, with great efforts to promote long-term services to people much older and richer than me, I gradually learned what we all need is to think more like customers. It is not an easy job. I will show you how in the following chapters.