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A. feel B. why C. decisions D. discover E. senses F. difficult G. fun H. create F. difficult G. fun H. create |
Playing is serious business for children. In fact, it's what they do best! Ask them they do it, and kids will probably say, "Because it's fun!" But it's much more than that. It's also good for them.
Scientists say that babies begin learning through playing. They use their five to get to know their new world. Touching allows them to how different things feel. Brightly-coloured toys and clothing help develop a baby's sense of sight.
When small children choose which toy to play with, they begin developing their abilities in making .
Children love toys that allow them to use their imagination. Sometimes an empty box is more than a high-tech toy. That's because a box can become anything a child imagines it to be.
Crayons, paints and Play-Doh (彩色塑泥) are also good because they allow children to things. Traditional building blocks teach them important pre-math skills like problem-solving.
Playing doesn't become any less important after children start school. Many valuable lessons about life are learned on the school playground. Kids learn how to share, take turns and play by the rules.
For many kids in Africa, the colorful PlayPump is the first playground equipment they've ever seen. When they give it a push and jump in for their first ride, smiles of wonder break out on their faces.
The fun of going round and round in a circle is just part of the wonder. This invention doesn't just change their play-time. It changes their lives.
As the merry-go-round starts, it pumps clean water up from deep underground and keeps it in a huge tank. People are welcome to come and help themselves to the water for free.
In the countryside of Africa, few people drink clean water. They don't have water equipment in their homes. Instead they often walk a long way to carry water back.
Patricia Molope, 15, explains that before her South African village got a PlayPump, people would pay a taxi driver to take them to a well far from their homes. "Sometimes the taxi drivers were busy and we would have to stop bathing in order to save water. It was too far to walk there, but now we have our own clean water in our village, and life is better."
The hard job of carrying water usually is done by women and girls. Carrying water for miles and hours each day is such a big job that sometimes prevents girls from being able to go to school.
Thanks to the PlayPump, getting water is quick and easy—— and even boys join in. The pumps have become a new activity. Kids and adults seem to love playing with them while collecting water.
Twelve-year-old boy Khumalo says, "I have seen many kinds of water pumps, but never one that can keep water. When I grow up, I want to be an inventor so I can invent clever things like the PlayPump that will help my country."
So far, more than 800 Playpumps are operating in schools and neighborhood in four African countries, providing water for almost two million people.
A few weeks ago, I happened to meet my son's math teacher at a local cafe. We talked about teaching children. We agreed that subjects like math and reading are 1 important things that children learn in a classroom. Instead, those little children should be trained to be kind and brave, and become contributors to a larger community.
Every Friday afternoon she asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children whom they'd like to2 with the following week. She also asks the students to name one student who they believe has been abnormal that week. All ballots(选票) are privately handed to her.
After the students go home, she takes out those pieces of paper, places them in front of her and looks for patterns. Who is not getting welcomed by anyone else? Who doesn't even know who to make friends with? Who never gets noticed enough to be needed? Who had a million friends last week but 3 this week?
You see, she is not looking for a new seating chart or "abnormal students." She is looking for 4 children. She is looking for children who have difficulty in communicating with other children. And she is trying to find out who is being bullied and who is doing the bullying.
As a teacher, parent and lover of all children, I think that this is the greatest strategy that I have ever seen. It is like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the5 of students.
"How long have you been doing this?" I asked." Ever since Columbine(科伦拜校园枪击案),"she said. This brilliant woman watched Columbine and knew that all violence begins with loneliness. And so she decided to start fighting violence early and often. What she is doing when she sits in her empty classroom6 those lists that were written with 11-year-old hands is saving lives. I am sure of it. She is saving lives!
Maths, more than any other subject causes anxiety in students. Maths anxiety or fear of maths is actually quite common. Usually maths anxiety comes from unpleasant experiences in maths. When anxious students look at maths problems, their minds go c blank. They feel stupid, and they can't remember how to do even the s things.
Students with maths anxiety usually have difficulties in f their minds on the maths problems. Their brains seem to shut down when a maths problem appears. Fear and anxiety take the place of clear t. Finally they give up their efforts to understand.
For some students, maths anxiety can turn into a great block forever. Maths teachers can help them move away this block by p the students with more support and encouraging them in maths study. However, a simple "you can do it" is not enough. I, the teachers need to prove to the students that they can do it, convincing them——by telling them stories of successful experiences——that they can do maths better than they think. In addition, teachers should move towards a real-life way to maths, with more attention on understanding and less on memorization, more on application and less on computation, more on students' participation and less on t lectures.
Weighing too much can damage your health, and obesity is a growing problem for both kids and adults around the world. Sleep might be one answer to the problem. A new study has found that elementary school students who slept too little were more likely to gain pounds.
Past studies have shown a link between sleeping less and weighing more, but scientists have had a hard time deciding "which came first, the chicken or the egg," says Julie C. Lumeng of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In other words, it hasn't been clear whether kids who weigh too much have trouble sleeping, or whether sleeping less leads to weight gain. Both scenarios(情境) seemed equally possible.
To get a better idea of which causes which, Lumeng and colleagues interviewed the parents of 800 third graders from around the United States. The parents answered questions about how well their kids slept that year. Three years later, the parents answered the same questions.
By sixth grade, about 18 percent of kids interviewed in the study were overweight. The scientists found no relationship between weight and the students' race or gender. It also didn't matter how strict their parents were, or whether they were boys or girls. Obesity struck all of these groups equally.
Instead, sleep seemed to be the key factor. Over the 3 years of the study, the children averaged a healthy 9.5 hours of sleep a night. Some kids, however, slept a lot more--or less--than others.
For the sixth graders, every hour of sleep above the 9.5-hour average was linked to a 20 percent lower risk of being overweight. Sleep appeared doubly important for the third graders. Every extra hour of sleep they got was linked to a 40 percent drop in obesity by sixth grade.
"I expected we would find that this (sleep link with obesity) was just a bunch of bunk," says Lumeng, a pediatrician(儿科医师). But their findings were convincing. No matter how her team looked at the link, "we couldn't make it go away."—Emily Sohn.
It means that scientists can't decide.
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H. 