Finding time to read is an important part of developing reading and writing skills for all kids. And there are many easy and convenient ways to make reading a part of each day — even when it's tough to find time to sit down with a book.

    Car trips, waits in checkout lines and the doctor's office are all opportunities for reading. Keep books or magazines in your car, or backpack to pull out whenever you're going to be in one place for a while. Even if you can't finish a book, read a few pages or discuss some of the pictures.

    Encourage kids to bring favorite books and magazines along wherever you go. While it's attractive to provide electronic games and readers, be sure to alternate electronic media with plenty of opportunities to read traditional print books.

    Reading opportunities are everywhere you go. While riding in the car, for example, encourage kids to spot words and letters (on billboards, store signs, etc.), turning it into a game (“Who'll be the first to find a letter B?”).

    Even daily tasks like cooking can provide reading moments. Kids can assist you as you cook by telling you how much flour to measure. Give your child a catalogue to read while you sort through the mail. Ask relatives to send your child letters, e-mail, or text messages, and read them together. Help your child create letters or messages to send back to the relatives. These types of activities help kids see the purpose of reading and of print.

    Even when you're trying to get things done, you can encourage reading. While cleaning, for instance, you might ask your child to read a favorite book to you while you work.

    Make sure kids get some time to spend quietly with books, even if it means cutting back on other activities, like watching TV or playing video games.

    Most important, be a reader yourself. Kids who see their parents reading are likely to imitate them and become readers, too!

    Across Britain, burnt toast will be served to mothers in bed  this morning as older sons and daughters to deliver their supermarket bunches of flowers, But, according to a new study, we should be placing a higher value on motherhood all year.

    Mothers have long known that their home worked was just heavy as paid work. Now, the new study has shown that if they were paid for their parental labors, they would earn as much as￡172,000 a year.

    The study looked at the range of jobs mothers do, as well as the hours they are working, to determine the figure. This would make their yearly income ￡30, 000 more than the Prime Minister earns.

    By analyzing the numbers, it found the average mother works 119 hours a week,40 of which would usually be paid at a standard rate 79 hours as overtime. After questioning 1,000 mothers with children under 18,it found that ,on most days, mums started their routine work at 7am and finished at around 11pm.

    To calculate just how much mothers would earn from that labor, it suggested some of the roles that mums could take on, including housekeeper, part-time lawyer, personal trainer and entertainer. Being a part-time lawyer, at ￡48.98 an hour, would prove to be the most profitable of the “mum jibs”, with psychologist（心理学家）a close second.

    It also asked mothers about the challenges they face, with 80 percent making emotional（情感的）emand as the hardest thing about motherhood.

Over a third of mums felt they needed more training and around half said they missed going out with friends.

    The study shoes mothers matter all year long and not just on, Mother's Day. The emotional, physical and mental energy mothers devote to their children can be never-ending, but children are also sources of great joy and happiness. Investing（投入）in time for parenting and raising relationships is money well spent.

    Blowing bubbles is fun! The best thing about bubbles is that it's easy to make your own bubble solution(溶液). You can make as much as you want and blow as many bubbles as you'd like. If you add a "secret" ingredient(配料), you'll get bigger and stronger bubbles! Do just as follows:

    Measure 6 cups of water into one container, then pour 1 cup of dish soap into the water and slowly stir it until the soap is mixed in. Try not to let bubbles form while you stir.

    Measure 1 tablespoon of glycerin(甘油) or 1/4 cup of corn syrup（玉米淀粉） and add it to the container. Stir the solution until it is mixed together.

    You can use the solution right away, but to make even better bubbles, put the lid on the container and let your super bubble solution sit overnight. The soap mixture on the outside of a bubble is actually made of three very thin layers: soap, water, and another layer of soap. A bubble pops when the water that is trapped between the layers of soap evaporates(蒸发). The glycerin or corn syrup mixes with the soap to make it thicker. The thicker skin of the bubbles keeps the water from evaporating as quickly, so they last longer. It also makes them stronger, so you can blow bigger bubbles.

    Dip a bubble wand or straw into the mixture, slowly pull it out, wait a few seconds, and then blow. If you don't have a ready-made "bubble wand", you can make your own by cutting off the end of the bulb of a plastic pipet. Dip the cut end in solution and blow through the narrow end. You can also make a loop out of thin wire or pipe cleaner. Just twist a round end on your wire to blow the bubbles through. You can even make it heart-shaped, square or use other shapes if you're clever enough to bend it well.

    The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has welcomed home two paintings by the Dutch master, more than 14 years after they were ripped (抢) off the museum's wall in a nighttime theft. Museum director Axel Rueger called their return “one of the most special days in the history of the museum.”

    The paintings were discovered last year by Italian police while they were searching suspected Italian criminals' farmhouse near Naples for evidence of drug dealing. The two paintings were wrapped in cotton sheets. They were stuffed in a box and hidden behind a wall in a toilet when they were found.

    The paintings were considered among the artworks most searched for in the world. After years in darkness, they can now shine again. They are back on display at the museum before being taken to the conservation studio for repair. Fortunately, they suffered remarkably little damage as thieves who had climbed up a ladder and broken a window to get into the museum in 2004 rip them out of their frames.

    “It is not only a surprise that the works have been recovered but it's even more surprising they are in relatively unharmed condition,” Rueger said.

    The museum director was on vacation when the call came last year from Italian authorities who believed they had recovered the paintings. He didn't celebrate right away. He'd had calls like this before.

    “I was hopeful but also a little hesitant. Over these years, we had so many occasions when people phoned us, contacted us, claiming that they knew something about the whereabouts (下落) of the works and each time it was false, the trace went cold,” he said. “So...the way has been till of disappointment.” But museum experts sent to Italy to check the authenticity(真实性) of the works quickly turned Rueger's doubts into delight.

    Rueger said the paintings are now back permanently at the museum, which is home to dozens of works by Van Gogh. “I'm very confident that everything is safe in the museum from now on,” he said.

    Mew Zealand's chief conservation (环保)officer，Lou Sanson, caused an argument in October suggesting that it should be time to start charging tourists for entering national parks. New Zealanders are keen fans of these parks. Many would be annoyed at having to pay. But many also worry about the incoming foreign tourists who have been seeking the same fun.

    In 2016 New Zealand hosted 3.5m tourists from overseas; by 2022 more than 4.5m are expected every year—about the same as the country's population. Tourism has become the biggest export. The national parks, which make up about one-third of the country, are a huge draw. About half of the foreign tourists visit one. They are keen to experience the natural beauty promised by the country's “100% Pure New Zealand” advertising campaign (and shown off in the film adaptations of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”，which were shot in New Zealand's breath-taking wilderness).

    But for every happy foreign couple posing for a selfie next to a tuatara (楔齿蜥)there is a NewZealander who remembers the way things used to be-when you could walk the tracks without running into crowds at every clearing. Many locals now wonder why their taxes, as they see it, are paying for someone else's holiday. Mr. Sanson would seem to agree. Entry fees could be used to upgrade facilities such as car parks and trails. A charge could also help reduce numbers at some of the popular locations by making it cheaper to use lesser-known, but no less beautiful, trails far away from home.

    Some are not so sure it would work. Hugh Logan, a former chief of conservation for the government who now runs a mountain climbing club, worries it would cost too much to employ staff to take money from hikers at entrances. It would also be difficult to prevent tourists from entering the parks without paying.

    Some argue that it would be easier to charge visitors a “conservation tax” when they enter the The Green Party the third-largest in parliament says that adding around NZ$18($12.50)is still acceptable to foreign tourists. But some travel companies don't quite agree with the idea. They note that tourists already contribute around NZ $l.l bn through the country's 15% sales fetter, such firms say, to use foreign tourists' contribution to this tax for the protection of the parks.

    Among the fiercest critics of a charge are those who point out that free access to wilderness areas is an important principle for New Zealanders, It is documented in a National Parks Act (法案) which inspires almost constitution-like devotion among the country's nature-lovers. Mr. Sans on has a rocky path ahead.

    Hawking died early Wednesday at his home in England at the age of 76. Throughout his career as one of the world's most recognizable cosmic(宇宙的) thinkers, he regularly threw himself into pop culture's comedic ring with cameos(客串)on programs such as The Simpsons and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

    These appearances defined(使明确) Hawking's personal life as much as his universe-shaking theoretical work. Humor, however, was not just one side of his personality, but a key to overcoming the disease he struggled against since 1963.

    "Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, ashas been maintaining a sense of humor," Hawking said in a 2013 documentary. "I am probably better known for my appearances on The Simpsons and on The Big Bang Theory than I am for my scientific discoveries."

    At 21, Hawking was diagnosed with a condition similar to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(肌萎缩性侧索硬化症), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. According to the ALS Association, "Half of all people affected with ALS live at most three or more years after diagnosis. Twenty percent live five years or more; only ten percent will live more than ten years."

    The disease would eventually shut down Hawking's motor functions, making him speechless and unable to move without a wheelchair. Doctors initially(最初) said he would be dead in two years. His condition, however, proved to be a rare slow-acting version.

    But Hawking fought through his worse physical state, rising to a position as a celebrated professor of mathematical at the University of Cambridge and altering the popular conception of physics with his 1988 bestseller, A Brief History of Time.

    "When I turned 21, my expectations were reduced to zero," he said in a TV show. He added, "It was important that I came to appreciate what I did have. It's also important not become angry, no matter how difficult life is, because you can lose all hope if you can't laugh at yourself and at life in general."