Do you have a vegetable garden? Have you ever watched a seed sprout(发芽) and grow fruit until it became the tomato on your plate? If you go to school in the USA, there is a good chance you have.

    At the moment, nearly 20 percent of schools in the USA have their own vegetable gardens that are planted and cared for by students. Next year, even more schools will have gardens and more USA kids will know the pleasure of growing their own food.

    Much of the growing interest in planting comes from the First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" project, which started in 2010. The First Lady wants to improve children's nutrition(营养) in the USA--and she began her project by planting a garden at the White House with the help of some local kids. The kids were more interested in eating the vegetables from their garden than in eating fast food. This gave the First Lady an idea.

    Because so many USA kids eat breakfast and lunch at school, the food should be healthy and good. Why not let kids grow the food for their own cafeterias (自助食堂)? Mrs Obama's project gives money to schools to start their own gardens, and more school gardens are sprouting up every day.

    Students also use the information from their gardens to study science and math, and they paint pictures of their gardens in art class. Many students choose to work in the garden instead of playing on the playground during their noon break. Sound like fun? Ask your teacher if there's room for a garden at your school, too.

Christie lives far from her high school. She travels 50 minutes on the train to get there from her house. Christie has many ways to pass the time when she is on the train to and from her school. She can do one of the following:

◆Read 25 pages in a novel.   ◆Do 2m ath exercises.

◆Write a letter to a friend. ◆Sleep for 50 minutes.

Christie never sleeps on the train on Friday mornings, because she has tests that day, and she likes to study on the train. She often writes to three different friends. She sends them each letters about twice a month. If Christie reads a novel on the way to school, she won't read it on the way home.

Tony and George were painting freely. Each of them had a bottle of blue paint(油漆) and a bottle of yellow paint. 

Suddenly George said, " Look, Tony, I made green!"

" How did you do it?" asked Tony. 

"I put yellow paint on top of my blue paint- yellow and blue put together make green!" shouted George. Other children came around to watch and wanted to do it themselves. 

This is an example of discovery learning or hands- on learning. 

People remember things better when they learn them by doing. Here is an example. How will you learn to play football?

Buy a book and read about how to play football or buy a video about football? Or go to the playground and ask a person to teach you?

Which way will help you learn the game best? Learning on the playground is the best way for most people because they try the game and learn the rules as they play. They learn in a hands- on way. 

Hands- on learning is good for children. The learner takes an active part in it instead of just sitting and listening. This is the way that we want our children to learn. In order to learn best, children must take an active part in hands- on activities every day. Some good examples of hands- on activities are working puzzles, painting, playing simple board games together and so on.