Today,roller skating (滑旱冰)is easy and fun. But many years ago, it wasn't easy at all. Before 1743, peoplenever tried skating on wheels. That changed because of a man named John JosephMerlin. Merlin's work was making instruments. In his free time he liked to playthe violin. Merlin was a man with many ideas and many dreams. People called hima dreamer.

    One dayMerlin received an invitation to go to an important party. He was very pleasedand a little excited. As the day of the party came near, Merlin began to think.He wanted to find a way to make a wonderful entrance at the party. Merlin hadan idea. He thought that he would attract a lot of attention if he could skateinto the room.

    Merlintried different ways to make himself roll. Finally, he decided to put twowheels under each shoe. These were the first roller skate shoes. Merlin wasvery proud of them. He dreamed of arriving at the party and skating into theroom while playing the violin. He was sure that everyone would be verysurprised.

    On thenight of the party Merlin rolled into the room, playing his violin. Everyonewas really surprised to see him. There was just one problem. Merlin had no wayto stop his roller skating. He rolled on, playing the violin. Then, with alleyes on him, Merlin hit into a huge mirror on the wall. The mirror broke intomany pieces with a very loud noise. But nobody forgot Merlin's wonderfulentrance after that.

At the beginning of the school year, each student would be given a special job for which they would be responsible (负责任的) for the whole term. Rita, a quiet and hardworking girl, hoped for an exciting task, like taking care of the class plants. Instead, she received a small box with sand and a small ant. 

Even though the teacher explained that this task was very special, Rita could not help feeling disappointed. However, she decided to do her best with her new job. She began to study and care for the ant, learning about its habitat (栖息地) and needs. She made the box a comfortable home for the ant, and it grew much bigger than anyone expected. 

Rita's efforts caught the attention of her science teacher, Mr. Thompson. He turned her work into a class project, and Rita became the class expert (专家) on ants. Her hard work helped the whole class learn about ant behavior and habitats. They even built a small ant farm in the classroom to observe the ant closely. 

Gradually, Rita's classmates became more and more interested in the ant project. They started asking her questions and observing the ant's behavior themselves. Rita organized a presentation where she shared her findings with the whole school during the science fair. 

At the end of the year, Rita's class was recognized as the best of the year. Rita was as well praised for her hard work and how she turned a small task into something big. Rita learned that every task, no matter how small, could make a big difference. She also learned that sometimes the most unexpected things can lead to great success.

Things to Do in Star Town This Summer

"I don't like my school, and I want to go home!" Do you have that idea that? A lot of children do. Now let's talk about it.

If you don't like your school, the first thing is to know why. You may not like your teachers. You may not have many friends at school. You may have problems with your subject s or homework

But what can you do with it? You can make some new friends. Going to school can be very interesting if you have many friends at school. You can make friends after school or when doing sports, then you can talk with them and do the same thing with them. You can also make school easy. If you don't like your teachers, you can talk with them. If you think your subjects are boring and difficult, you can ask others for help.

School is not a prison (监狱). You can learn to make your school life easy and interesting.

Primary school students in Changsha, Hunan Province, have started to learn the Changsha dialect (方言) in a course for them to choose which was newly offered this term. 

More than 20 third-grade students from a local primary school have signed up for the course. Many language professors at some major universities in Hunan are teaching it. 

Besides the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, students will also get knowledge about the idioms, nursery rhymes (童谣) , figures of speech and culture behind the dialect, according to Luo Xinru, Chinese language professor at Hunan Normal University and one of the teachers of the course. 

As our country has spent a lot of energy promoting standard Mandarin (标准普通话) , lots of young children have not learned how to speak local dialects, she said. That's why the country has started to protect different language resources in recent years, she added. 

The Ministry of Education carried out the National Language Resource Protection Project in 2015 to do some surveys and better protect its language resources. Our country has set up the largest language resource center in the world, according to the ministry. 

Luo said promoting Mandarin and using dialects are not contradictory and children have the ability to speak them at the same time. 

"Dialect protection is very important and different dialects which carry different cultures and values should not and will not disappear," she said. "We do not expect all children taking the course to learn perfect Changsha dialect, but they should understand the importance of different dialects and perhaps be willing to dive into the research and protection of them as they grow older."