Pablo Picasso was born in Spain in 1881. His father was a painter and art teacher who gave his son the first lesson in drawing. He won a prize — “Science and Charity” for his first important painting when he was only fifteen. He studied in several cities in Spain. But there was no one to teach him all that he wanted to know. When he was nineteen, he visited Paris.

Paris was then the center of the world for artists. Everything that was new and exciting in the world of paintings seemed to happen there. When he was twenty-three, Picasso moved there to live and lived in France for the rest of his life.

    When he was over ninety, this great painter still lived his life like a young man. He was still looking for new ideas and new ways to use his artistic materials.

    When he died in 1973, he was ninety-one years old.

    A father and his son went to a kite-flying festival. The son was full of joy when he saw the sky filled with colorful kites. He wanted to fly a kite, too. The father then bought a kite for him.

    The son started to fly the kite. Soon, his kite was high up in the sky. After a while, he said, "Father, it seems that the string (线) is stopping the kite from flying higher. If we cut it, the kite will be free and fly even higher. Can we cut it?" The father cut the string. The kite started to go higher. This made the little boy happy.

    But then, slowly, the kite started to come down. And finally it fell to the ground. The son was surprised to see this. He asked his father, "I thought that after cutting the string, the kite would fly higher. Why did it fall down?"

    The father explained, "The string was not stopping the kite from going higher, but was helping it stay in the sky. You helped the kite go up in the right direction using the string. But when you cut the string, it could no longer support the kite."

    Sometimes, we may feel like there are certain things that are holding us back (阻碍) and stopping us growing. But in fact, these might be the things that support us the most.

My name is Mary. Linda is my good friend. We are classmates. Look! Here is a photo of Linda's 1 . The tall man is her father. He 2 at a radio station. He likes his job. Every morning, he gets up early, so he is never 3 for work. The radio station is far from their 4 , so her father drives to work. It usually 5 him about forty minutes. The woman6 white is her mother. She is a teacher. She 7 English in Linda's school. She usually goes to school 8 . She likes walking and she says it's good 9 . Can you see the girl in black? It's Linda. She is a nice girl. I like to play with 10 after school. 

 Welcome to my new school! It is beautiful with many buildings in it. My classroom is not big but special. It is d{#blank#}1{#/blank#} from other classrooms. There are some desks but no chairs in it. So we can only s{#blank#}2{#/blank#} on some colourful big balls when having lessons. In f{#blank#}3{#/blank#} of the classroom building is the science building. It's my favourite place because I can have science lessons there. Next to the science building is a bigl{#blank#}4{#/blank#}. There are many kinds of books in it. In the center of the school is a big playground. Students o{#blank#}5{#/blank#} play basketball there after school. I really love my school!