It is nice to hike with kids, but you must know something about hiking if you want to take a happy, relaxing trip.

    Start early, know what to do in a heavy rain and carry sunglasses. Take snacks, toilet paper and a bag with you. Take a whistle(口哨) for kids. You may use it if children run away.

    Find a partner. Kids are naturally competitive, and you can use this to your hike. They will try to do better than each other when they go hiking. They also will keep each other interested in something new.

    Do something easy. It's good to play easy games. You can say "Does anybody see anything red that matches my shirt?" Kids will be easy and happy to answer this kind of questions.

    If you aren't excited, they won't be either. When your kids find something they are interested in, you must show your interest in it, too.

    It is autumn, and the Indians ask their new chief (首领) what the weather is going to be like this winter. The chief looks at the sky and says it's usually cold, and he tells the villagers to collect wood for the winter. As a good chief, he goes to call the weatherman and asks, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"

    "It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold," the weatherman answers.

    So the chief goes back to his people and tells them to collect more food. A week later he calls the weatherman again.

    "Is it going to be a very cold winter?"

    "Yes," the weatherman answers again. "It's going to be a very cold winter."

    The chief again goes back to his people and tells them to collect every piece of wood they can find. Two weeks later he calls the weatherman again.

    "Are you sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"

    "Yes," the weatherman answers again. "It's going to be very very cold."

    "Why are you so sure?" asks the chief.

    The weatherman answers, "Because the Indians are collecting wood like crazy!"

    Miss Bailey taught me English in Junior school. She cycled to school, and then when entering the school gate, she would gave her bicycle to anyone of us to park it for her. It was a privilege（特别恩典）when Miss Bailey gave her bicycle to you. One day Shankar stood at the gate, Shankar was a hunchback（驼背的人）.

    We laughed and said, “Move out of the way, Shankar! Miss Bailey is going to enter!” Miss Bailey drove in and we all rushed to offer our hands to her. But Miss Bailey looked past us all. “Will you park it for me?” she asked. We looked back to see who it was and were surprised to see it was towards Shankar. “I don't think so, Miss Bailey!” stammered （结结巴巴地说）Shankar. “Why! You lazy fellow!” said Miss Bailey playfully. “You don't want to help your teacher, do you?” “ Of course I want to, Miss Bailey!” whispered Shankar. “But I might drop your cycle!” “ If you drop it ,you pick it up!” said the teacher with a smile.

    With that she gave her cycle to Shankar and didn't look to see how he'd manage. Pretending she had confidence in his abilities, Miss Bailey turned and walked to class. We watched Shankar as he held her bike, we held our breath as we thought it was going to fall. Dines rushed to help. “Leave it!” Shankar said, and we all stopped. It seemed that his hump（驼背）disappeared as he drew himself up to his full height, and then with growing confidence, he pushed Miss Bailey's cycle to the parking lot. The school bell rang, and we rushed to class. Shankar was the last to enter, but we were surprised; it was a different boy who walked in.

    Miss Bailey didn't even look at him as he walked to her and handed her the key. From that day on, Shankar was ready to answer the questions in class, his grades went up and a smile appeared on his face.

    In ancient times, there was a king who loved flowers. His palace was always decorated with beautiful orchids(兰花)and other flowers. As the king grew older, he knew that one day he would have to give up his throne(王位). He had to find someone new to rule the country.

    He came up with a competition. He asked his servants to travel to every part of the country and give every person a flower seed. He then announced that whoever grew him the most beautiful flower would take his throne.

    Everyone in the country then got their own seed. One young man named David was especially excited about the competition, as he had experience growing flowers himself,

    David planted his seed in a pet and put it in a place where it would get lots of sunlight. He took care to water it every day. But as hard as he tried, his flower simply would not grow.

    Finally, it was time for everyone to show their flowers to the king. David took his empty pot to the palace.

    "Your Majesty, I am sorry to say that I could not grow a flower this time at all, ________,"he said.

    The king was quite satisfied with David's honesty. Although he did not choose David as the new king, he gave David a job as a judge(法官). He believed that David's honesty would make him the right person to make sure the justice(公正)in the country.

    Chopsticks were invented in China. There are many stories about who may have invented them. One of them is about Dayu.

    Dayu was an ancient Chinese leader who helped his people fight floods. He was always busy and often ate in the wild. He used a pot to boil (煮沸)water and cook animal meat. Most of the time, he was in a hurry and didn't want to wait to eat. But the meat was too hot to pick up with his hands. In those days, people ate only with their hands.

    So Dayu picked up some twigs (树枝)to help him hold the meat. The twigs later became the chopsticks we know today.

    But of course, this is just one story. The earliest chopsticks we have found so far are more than 3,000 years old, dating back to the Shang Dynasty (朝代).The six bronze chopsticks were found in the Ruins of Yin (殷墟)in Anyang, Henan.

    At first, chopsticks were just used as cooking tools. It was only after some time that people started to use chopsticks to eat.