The 14-year-old girl Susan Davis is having a party. At this party, there are neither cakes nor candles. There is only a room full of art supplies(供应品)and many kids she never met. And all the kids are homeless.

 Susan got the idea last year after her school. She worried that kids who could not afford their own supplies would give up drawing. So she started writing letters to big companies to ask for help. Then the girl received lots of donations(赠品)from some of the biggest art supply companies. Susan collected more than $3000 in supplies, enough to make a home for kids to paint their own watercolors.

By far she's held three parties. What she did was encouraged by the White House. Susan received the President's awards(奖赏). Now Susan does it for a different reason— to get the poor kids to enjoy art.

    同学们，自从上了初中，我们的校园生活丰富多彩，可下面有五位来自贫困地区的同学，需要你的帮助。请根据他们的述说，从五幅图中，为他们选出一份合适的礼物，希望他们开心、进步。

{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Lin Yang: I know Yao Ming. He is great. I want to play sports with my friends. But we have no soccer balls, basketballs or volleyballs.

{#blank#}2{#/blank#}Yang Li: I don't have a clock in my home. I don't know the time to go to school. I don't want to be late for school, so I get up early.

{#blank#}3{#/blank#}Zheng Lei: Our teachers tell us books are our friends. I want to read many books and I want to write books.

{#blank#}4{#/blank#}Liu Wei: It's very cold here, but I have only an old sweater. It's my mother's. I need new clothes.

{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Dai Su: My schoolbag is broken(破损的). I go to school with the old schoolbag.

    How do you feel when you are fooled by others? No doubt, feel bad. There is nothing worse than falling for a joke and being a fool except one day. Yes, that's April Fool's Day. Nobody will be angry to be an " April Fool".{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    The headmaster at my school decided to play an April Fools' joke on the students when I was in high school. On March 31, she announced that our school would hold a "Dress to Impress" day.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Girls were told to wear formal dresses and smart jackets, while a suit jacket and tie for each boy would be best. The teachers, we were told, would do the same.

    On April Fool's Day, many of us students came to school dressed in our best clothes. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}In the morning, all of us got together on the playground, waiting for the headmaster. She would speak to the students. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Instead, she wore jeans, running shoes and a T-shirt. The teachers also got dressed casually like her.

    "April Fools!" she said, with a big smile on her face. "We just wanted to remind you that teachers have a sense of humor, too!"

    Surely, all the teachers weren't April Fools.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}

Huge Waves Destroying Arctic Ice Faster than Expected

    Ice covers much of the Arctic Ocean (北冰洋). Some pieces of ice are huge, like moving islands. As temperatures have increased, however, some of the ice has begun to disappear. Scientists have discovered huge waves (海浪) in the arctic waters.

    The waves were discovered by accident in May, 2010. Scientist Aleksey Marchenko and his students set out on a trip. They wanted to study the icy waters.

    On May 2, the ship traveled east and stopped next to a large chunk of ice around 50 miles from the small island of Hopen. Marchenko prepared to lead his students out onto the ice.

    "We were ready to go but when I went out, I discovered many cracks (裂缝) around," he remembers.

    He decided to move the ship deeper into the ice to keep safe. The farther in they went, he thought, the harder the ice would become. As they pushed forward, however, the ship experienced small waves, and then bigger ones. Soon, the waves broke up the ice around the ship into thousands of smaller pieces.

    Within an hour, Marchenko and his team saw a wave that was about 13 feet high. The ship's navigation (航行) system finally recorded the largest waves. They were more than 20 feet in height. The waves were so strong that they forced huge pieces of ice to jump up and down, breaking the ice into smaller pieces within just one hour. Scientists had never imagined that the process could happen so fast. The waves in these areas used to be small.

    The speed and force of the huge waves there makes it impossible to know in advance when they are coming. That could be dangerous for navigators and local communities who are unprepared for huge waves or depend on sea ice to protect them. Wildlife like polar bears and walruses that depend on sea ice to live is also in danger.

    Some scientists think people will soon see even bigger waves in these icy waters. As waves break up ice, the seas will become more open, and the waves will get even stronger. There are stormy times ahead.

    A man came home from work late, tired and unhappy. He found his 5-year -old son waiting for him at the door.

    The boy asked, "Daddy, how much do you make every hour?" The father was angry at his son's question. When he said $20 an hour, the little boy asked him for $ 10. The father was even angrier because he thought the boy just wanted some money to buy a toy. So he didn't answer his son.

    The little boy quietly went to his room. After about an hour, the man calmed himself down (使....平静) and started to think: Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $ 10.

    "Maybe I was too hard on you just now, "the man went into his son's room and said." Here's the $ 10 you asked for."

    "Oh, thank you, Daddy!" The little boy said. Then he reached under his pillow (枕头), pulled out some crumpled (皱的) money and said, "Daddy, I have $20 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow, I really want to have supper with you."