A

    A class teacher, in my opinion, plays an important role in a child's development. Every year when my daughter moves to a new class, I have a usual big worry –her new class teacher. This year, she is moving to Class Three and I can't wait to see how things are going on.

    Last year, my daughter did not like her teacher at all. It was so bad that she did not look forward to school. It was a year full of trouble and worries.

    This year, Miss Purity is gentle and humorous. It's hard not to like her. Here are the changes in my daughter.

    She becomes an early bird. Last year, mornings were like a fight because I had to force Tasha to hurry up when she was preparing for school. I had to pull her out of bed, tell her to take breakfast and then drove her to school. But now, our mornings are like a party. She wakes up early, prepares everything at a high speed and then rushes to school to be with Miss Purity.

    She's happy. She enjoys school and school work and keeps talking about what they did at school when she comes home.

    She's responsible. She used to be careless and forgetful. But now she never forgets even her water bottle at school. She makes her bed and helps in the kitchen.

    Her diary is full of praises. The diary is the tool of communication between the teacher and the parents. Last year, her diary was always full of negative reports. One time, she poured water in a child's lunchbox, another time she threw another kid's textbook in the toilet. Now she began to share her snacks with those who did not have anything. She's always volunteering to clean the blackboard, the teacher's chair and desk.

    She does well in school. Finishing her classwork was such a big problem. She had to do it at home. But now, she finished both the classwork and homework at school.

    Mr. Brown works on a farm. Mr. Green works in a park. But they don't know each other. Today is Sunday. Mr. Brown comes to the park. He feels tired. He wants to have a little rest. He sees a red chair under a tree over there. So he walks to the chair. Mr. Green is behind him. Mr. Green runs to the chair with a board when he sees Mr. Brown come to the chair. But Mr. Brown runs faster（更快） than Mr. Green. Then he sits on the chair. Mr. Brown is very happy. But Mr. Green doesn't say anything. He gives the board（板子） in his hand to Mr. Brown. It says, "Wet Paint(油漆未干). "

    Long, long ago, a donkey(驴) fell in a dry well. The animal cried for hours as the farmer tried to think out what to do. Finally, the farmer thought the animal was too old and the well needed to be covered(覆盖) up anyway, so he decided not to try to save the donkey.

    The farmer invited his neighbours(邻居) to help him. They began to shovel(铲) dirt into the well. The donkey cried harder. Then a few shovelful later, he became quiet. The farmer looked into the well, and was surprised by what he saw.

    While every shovelful of dirt hit his back, the donkey would shake (抖) it off and take a step on the new layer(层) of dirt. As the farmer's neighbours continued(继续) to shovel dirt on top of the animal, the donkey would shake it off and take another step up.

    Soon the donkey stepped up out the well and ran away, to the surprise of all the neighbours

    The lesson we get from this story is that life shovels some dirt on us, we must get out of the well and not let it cover us. We must learn to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our trouble is a stepping-stone (踏脚石). We can get out of the deepest well by never giving up!

    "I'm going to make a time capsule(胶囊)," Anna told her parents at the breakfast table.

    Dad looked up from his coffee cup and smiled. "Sounds interesting."

    "Dad, I'm building a time capsule – it's like a memory box. I watched my teacher dig one up from our school yard yesterday. Some students buried(埋) the capsule thirty years ago. It had a lot of old things in it, so we could see what life was like back then."

    After breakfast, Anna looked around in the garden and found an old coffee can. What should she put in the can?

    With her cat Kitty following close behind, Anna looked through her things. She grabbed her favorite book, her yo-yo and some photos. She put them in the can. She pulled off her watch and placed it in the can too. 

    "What else should I put into it?" she asked Kitty.

    "Meow." Kitty pushed a ball toward the can.

    "Sure, Kitty, I'll include your ball." Anna put Kitty's ball in the can.

    Anna put the top on and closed the can. On the front, she wrote ANNA AND KITTY'S TIME CAPSULE and then buried it in the garden. "All done," she told Kitty.

    After a few minutes, Anna sighed. What should she do next? She couldn't yo-yo. Or read her favorite book. She'd buried those. Now, she missed them.

    "Meow." Kitty looked at her.

    "Do you miss your ball?" Anna asked. "Don't worry. I'll get it for you." So Anna dug up their time capsule.

    Kitty pounced on the ball. And Anna pulled on her watch and read her book while yo-yoing under a tree in the garden. 

    Long ago, there was a queen who lived in a palace (宫殿) , she felt bored and said to her adviser(顾问) ,"AII the things around me are too boring. I need a different kind of beauty. Let everyone know that I will hold a competition for the most beautiful thing in the world. And the prize will be this crown (王冠)."

    Several days later, lots of people came to the competition and showed their things. The queen was not satisfied with what she saw. The adviser suggested, "What you are looking for cannot be brought to you. You must look for it by yourself. What about a journey?"

    The queen was interested in the idea, so she started at once. As she was on top of the hill near her palace, she looked down and suddenly something cried in her heart. "Why have I never found my palace so beautiful?"

    The queen spent one year traveling. She saw beauty on the farm, in the forest and even in the stars twinkling at night on her journey. But what was the most beautiful thing? She thought it over.

    Suddenly, she understood beauty was everywhere. She should learn to enjoy the world. She left the pieces of her crown at different places that she had seen. As time went by, the queen's crown got smaller and smaller until nothing was left.

    She found the most beautiful thing at last. It was the world!

    When scientist Jessica Wade realized how hard it was to find information about women scientists, she decided to help solve that problem. She has now added the stories of over 300 female scientists to Wikipedia.

    Dr. Wade has always been interested in science. But as she kept going in science and learned more about amazing women scientists, she was surprised to learn that they didn't have Wikipedia pages.

    Wikipedia is the world's largest encyclopedia, and the world's 5th most popular website. What makes it special is that anybody can add to or change it. But even though Wikipedia has close to 6 million articles. Dr. Wade noticed that "It doesn't have the stories of many amazing women in science." She says that 83% of the biographies on Wikipedia are about men.

    So, in January. 2018 she decided to write one Wikipedia article about a female scientist every day. She doesn't get paid, but it has become her second job. So far, she has created 306 Wikipedia pages.

    Dr. Wade will keep writing her articles, but she also wants to teach other people how to add articles to Wikipedia. She would like to create a website to keep track of all of the biographies. She wants to turn them into a teaching tool.