Today is November 28th. It's my sister Gina's eighth birthday. In the morning, my parents take us to Zig Zag's Store. There my mother buys a red sweater for Gina. And we go to Xinhua Book Store. There I buy some CDs for Gina. My father also buys a book for Gina, and its name is Harry Potter. It's Gina's favorite book. In the afternoon, my parents have a birthday party for Gina at home. Gina's friends, Bill, Jim and Cindy come to the party. Bill brings a new pencil to Gina. Jim gives Gina a soccer ball because she likes playing soccer. Cindy gives Gina an English-Chinese dictionary. Gina is very happy. Oh, I'm Gina's brother. My name is Robert.

    Many Chinese people like hot pot and Li Yang is one of them.

    Three days ago, Li Yang arrived in England. There he had three days of hamburgers, sandwiches, and potatoes. Yesterday he was very excited when he heard that there was going to be a meal of hot pot to welcome the new students.

    He went into the room and sat next to an American girl. To his surprise, he saw potatoes and bread in front of him. Where was the hot pot?

    When she saw Li Yang was very surprised, the American girl told him that hotpot is NOT hot pot. China has hot pot in two words but English hotpot is written in one word.

    Hotpot is made from meat, potatoes and onions. People put it in the oven (烤箱) all day in a heavy pot and on a low heat. It is easy to cook.

    Hotpot tastes nice. But Li Yang still misses hot pot, two words!

    When you go to a new school, it can be terrible. You may worry about making friends. But do not worry too much. Most of the time some people are friendly and some people are not. What makes a person a friend? Here are what the two students say.

    "My name is Helen. Amy and Sally are my best friends. I made friends with Amy when I was three years old. Now we're 14! I like her because she is happy and very friendly almost all the time. Sally is a quiet girl. She makes friends more slowly. However, she is just as good a friend as Amy. They are interested in the same things as me. We all like sports and we often play tennis together in the park. And we also like reading books in the school library. And we listen to each other's problems. We are all good at different school subjects, so we help each other with our homework too!"

    "I'm Tina. My best friend is Mabel. She and I always talk and laugh (笑). There are many things we both like. We like music. We often play the guitar and sing. We also go to movies, but sometimes we can't agree (同意)on which movie to see. Sometimes we just walk around. We also like swimming. On weekends, we usually do the homework, play sports and go to the Music Club. When I'm busy, sometimes I can't see Mabel for about a month. But we still find time to see each other. It's always fun to be with her.

    World Environment Day is on June 5th every year in the world. It makes people realize the problems of our earth. From June 5th to 16th of 1972, the UN had a meeting in the capital(首都) of Sweden(瑞典)—Stockholm. This was the first meeting to study how to protect the environment. We have only one earth, so everyone should do something to protect our earth. We should try to do the 3Rs every day—reduce(减少), reuse and recycle(循环). We should buy things without lots of packaging(包装). Use many things in our neighborhood—They don't have to travel very far and so they can reduce pollution. Recycle all the things you use. Carry reusable bag for shopping.

At home, we should try to save water and electricity every day. When we go out, we'd better walk, ride bikes or take a bus. Try to plant more trees and use less paper to protect the forests on the earth. And we should see every day as World Environment Day and try to do anything to help our environment.

    School is not the safe place as it used to be. How to help students stay away from danger? There are many activities that teachers can do to teach safety in an easy way. Here are some stories from the students who have had the safety class in NO.1 Middle School.

    Milk Smith: About Sports Safety

    Once, our head teacher made up a story about sports safety. All we needed to do was to point out safe and unsafe sports behaviour in the story. From this lesson, we knew we should always do warm-up exercises before playing sports and drink some water after that.

    Amy Young: About Classroom Safety

    Yes, making up stories is a good way to learn and enjoy ourselves. We were once asked to make up a story about a boy called Naughty. He always did something naughty in the classroom and got himself into trouble. In this way, we learned to behave well and get on well with each other.

    Frank Green: About Fire Safety

    In our school, we have a fire emergency response practice(火灾应急演习) in September every year. So we know where to go if there is a fire in school. We learn to use the fire extinguisher(灭火器), too. But I don't think we should be allowed to put out the fire alone. It's too dangerous for young students like us.