There are many differences between country life and city life in many ways. One person even does different things in the two places.

    Julia lived in the countryside, but one year she decided to visit the capital city to do some shopping and to see the sights. She stayed at a hotel near the central market. She had seldom been to the city before, and was very excited about what she would find.

    On the first morning of her visit, as she walked from the hotel to the market, she passed a beggar(乞丐). He was holding up a notice, which said, “Blind from birth. Please give generously(慷慨地).”

    Julia felt sorry for the blind beggar and she bent down and put a dollar coin into his bowl. “Thank you.” he said.

    The same thing happened again the following day.

    On the third day, however, Julia did not have a dollar coin. She had only fifty cents, so she dropped this into the beggar's bowl.

    “What have I done wrong?” the beggar said, “Why are you so stingy today? ”

    Julia was very surprised at what the beggar said. “How do you know I haven't given you a dollar?” she said, “If you're blind you can't know what coin I put into your bowl.”

    “Ah, ” explained the beggar, “The truth is that I'm not blind. I'm just looking after this place for the regular beggar while he's on holiday.”

    “On holiday?” Julia said, “And what exactly does your blind friend do on holiday?”

    “He goes into the countryside,” the man said, “and takes photographs. He's a very good photographer.”

    One day an old woman was travelling alone in the mountains. Suddenly she saw something shining in the stream（溪流）. When she came close, she found it was a precious（宝贵的）stone. She put the stone into her bag and went on with her trip.

    The next day the old woman met a young man, who was also a traveler in the mountains. The young man looked very hungry, so the old woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked carefully, "The stone is beautiful. Would you like to give it to me?"

    "Sure. Why not?" the woman said, and handed the stone to him.

    The young man left happily with the stone. He knew it was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the woman.

    "I've been thinking." he said. "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back and hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have in your bag."

    The woman opened her bag. It was almost empty. She looked at the young man and smiled, "I have nothing special in my bag, but I do have something precious—the joy of giving!"

    The young man felt ashamed (惭愧的）and left silently.

    “The failure to play is now a serious issue and it calls for action for change,” says Sir Ken Robinson, a leading expert in education, creativity and human development. This is the driving force behind Outdoor Classroom Day—a global teacher-led campaign, supported by Dirt is Good, a company producing daily chemical products.

    Outdoor Classroom Day, taking place on 17th May and 1st November this year, will see schools around the world swap the inside for the outside and take learning into the playground and beyond to make playtime a key part of the school day. This might involve using natural objects like stones to do sums, or going on an insect hunt to encourage curiosity. By now, Outdoor Classroom Day has grown from a grassroots movement to a global campaign that is expected to benefit five million children and over 40,000 schools from all around the world in 2018.

    This is helping to change the trend that sees many schools selling up or building on their playgrounds and cutting back on playtime to make more room for academic studies, while at home children's lives are increasingly filled with organized activities intended to help them learn. Today globally 61% of parents surveyed in the Dirt is Good Qualitative Study said that children don't know how to play without using technology.

    Outdoor Classroom Day is making playing time happen, with 22% of participating schools having increased their playtime since joining the campaign. 93% of teachers surveyed saw improvements in children's creativity after playing outside, and 97% believe that time outdoors is necessary for children to reach their full potential.

    Scientific studies show that real play—the active, physical, self-directed play—is essential for children to develop key life skills that are not taught elsewhere. Few would question the value of developing creativity, leadership, resourcefulness, and curiosity.

    I'd like to share 4 of my favorite blogs with you today. I'm guessing you know about some, but I'm hoping there might be a few new treasures for you to discover.

    Design for Mankind

    A lifestyle blog by Erin Loechner, filled with beautifully written articles on everything from design to parenting, to marriage, to work, to travel and more. And I have completely enjoyed the blog for six years.

    A Cup of Jo

    A lifestyle blog by Joanna Goddard, full of free topics, questions and regular posts on everything from food, design, travel, relationships to motherhood. This is another six-year read for me.

    Enjoy it

    A lifestyle and DIY blog by Elise Blaha Cripe, full of great ideas for all things DIY (memory-keeping, home decoration, photography, gardening...). I have been following Elise's blog since ten years ago.

    Cupcakes & Cashmere

    A lifestyle and fashion blog by Emily Schuman, full of all sorts great posts on everything from fashion, to decoration, to recipes, to work, to attitudes towards life. I had always heard people talk about this blog, but didn't start following regularly until a year or two ago.

Reading helps kids learn English and kids' books make it easy and enjoyable. Here are some books that are carefully picked for your kids.

Corduroy

It's about a little bear, Corduroy, in a toy shop. He has lost one of his buttons (纽扣). This makes him very sad because he wants to be taken home by a kid. So he decides to find a new button. Corduroy contains some hard words. So you'd better use a dictionary while reading it

 Price: $18; 10% discount (折扣) on Sunday

Curious George

Curious Georgp, a monkey, is a little too interested in everything, which causes humans to bring him from the forest to a big city. However, there he calls the fire department, is put into prison, escapes from prison and is carried into the sky by balloons. Though the book uses a lot of short and simple sentences, some of its words are not simple.

Price: $20; 20% discount on Sunday

The Story of Ferdinand

Ferdinand, a bull, loves to smell the flowers in the grassland. One day people come to pick a male cow for bull fights. Ferdinand doesn't want to be chosen, but a bee stings (叮) him. It causes him to jump around crazily, so he's picked. In Ferdinand's first fight, he lies down to smell the flowers instead of fighting. So he is sent back to the-grassland. The book has many similar stories that bring laughter. And it has everything that makes a children's book great for English learners — simple and hard words.

Price: $16; 10% discount on Sunday

Green Eggs and Ham

In this book, a cat named Sam really likes green eggs and meat. So he offers them to a friend. Read the book to see if his friend likes the meal or not. This book is a poem. Despite having simple vocabulary, the words are used in a way that feels smart.

Price: $15; 5% discount on Sunday

Devin Jackson, who went from selling tickets to tourists on Times Square to working as an engineer for a number of major corporations, told ABC News that he was 1 that there weren't many Black engineers or coders in the industry. So he decided to do something about it and 2 . 

In 2017, Jackson co-founded the non-profit organization We Build Black which 3 meetups, training courses and workshops for up-and-4 Black engineers. 

In the six years since it 5 , Jackson said his organization has raised millions of dollars, and trained and helped over 3,000 members with their 6 . 

"I became a software engineer and realized that I need to share the 7 with everybody around me and, you know, show my community 8 those freedoms," Jackson said. 

Sheree Edmund, a software engineer, told ABC News that the program allowed her the 9 to grow and have a space to pursue computer programing. Edmund, who was 10 with high functioning autism (孤独症) three years ago, said "It was a community, and an atmosphere where I didn't feel like I had to 11 who I was to fit in. And that made it a lot less 12 to be my real self. "

Jackson encouraged others to 13 their interest in tech and engineering skills, no matter how hard it may seem to 14 the industry. 

"You got to control what you can control at the end of the day and what you control is 15 ," he said. "So get to the grind (磨炼). That's really what I want you to take from this at the end of the day. "