Dragons are not real animals, but look like a combination (组合体) of many animals such as snakes, fish and deer. They have two horns (角) and a long moustache (胡子). With fantastic powers, they fly in the sky or swim in the sea. They can make rain, too. The Chinese dragon is a symbol of strength and good luck. The emperors of ancient China loved dragons. Their clothes were covered with pictures of dragons.

       We are proud to call ourselves the “descendants (传人) of the dragon”. In Chinese, “excellent” people are often called “dragon”. A number of Chinese sayings and idioms talk about dragons, for example, “Hoping one's child will become a dragon,” which means he or she will be successful.

        It is said that people born in the Year of the Dragon have certain characteristics. They are creative, confident, brave and quick-tempered. There are some famous “dragons” who have done excellent things, for example, Deng Xiaoping, the famous businessman Li Jiacheng and the movie star Zhao Wei. They are all successful. There are also some traditional festivals about dragons in China, such as Dragon Head-Raising Day and the Dragon Boat Festival. We have different kinds of activities to celebrate them. These two festivals come every year, but the Year of the Dragon comes every twelve years.

       The dragon is very important in Chinese culture. As the “descendants of the dragon”, it is necessary for us to know the views on dragons in our culture. It can help us understand why our parents always want us to be “dragons”.

       The year 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. Good luck to you!

    Every country has its favorite food. Italians like to eat pizza. Indians like to eat hot food. Japanese like to eat fish. Often they don't cook it.

    In England, one of the most popular kinds of food is fish and chips. People usually buy it in a fish and chip shop. They put it in paper bags, and take it home, or to their workplace. Sometimes they eat it in the park or on the road. The world's favorite food is American fast food. If you go to some important cities in the world, you can find people eating hamburgers and chips.

    Fish and chips, and Chinese take-away food are very popular in England. But they are less popular in the USA, they eat take-away food, too, like chicken. But the most popular kind of take-away food is the hamburger. It looks like bread with meat in it. Ham (火 腿) is a kind of pork, but the hamburger does not have any pork in  it. The beef is inside a kind of cake hamburgers are delicious. They are also popular in England and Australia.

Some animals can easily find their way home after a long journey. How do they make it? Scientific research shows that they are born with certain unusual abilities for direction.

A certain kind of ants, for example, can count their steps to avoid getting lost. They can go as far as 110 metres and bring food home. These ants live in the open desert(沙漠), so they have nothing to guide them along the way. It's like someone walking six kilometres through a dark forest.

Some fish have an unbelievable sense of smell. They can smell even a single drop of their home water in a large sea area. Some sea birds have a similar ability. They are able to make a smell map of their flying area.

Some animals can sense the earth's magnetic field (磁场), while humans can't. This magnetic field guides a certain kind of fish when they swim a long way to a place and then back. How can this kind of fish do that? It is still a mystery. Scientists have no good answers yet.

However, animals with such unusual abilities still have difficulty dealing with environmental changes caused by human activities. For example, many birds depend on stars for direction, but they get lost easily at night when city light s are kept on all night. To solve this problem, we can simply turn off some lights at night. Clearly, one small act of humans may mean a lot to animals.

Whenever we think about something, most of us have a feeling of words going through our minds. However, if you stop and try to listen to your own thoughts, you'll notice that they are not in order at all. It's easy to imagine that we think in the language that we speak, but this is completely wrong. Language can show the results of our thinking, but it's not the thinking itself. 

Getting the joke

Think about what happens when you "get" a joke: "I've decided to sell my Hoover (吸尘器). . . well, it was just collecting dust (灰尘). " Whether you laugh or not, you react (反应) at once. Then you try to put into words what the joke actually is. 

Another example is the thinking you need when playing a fast-moving video game. You might shout "Yes!"or "Got you!". But if you had to talk about all your plans aloud, your game play would slow down. Thoughts always come first and the expression of our thoughts in words comes later. 

Thinking in silence

Humans think about things without language all the time, and only report their thoughts in the language when they have time to do so. You can test this with a game. Read a word quickly, out loud or in your head. You'll find that while you're doing this, you won't be able to think with words, but you can still plan, reason and imagine, pretty much as normal. 

Smart minds

Just because humans don't need language to think, it doesn't mean that words don't help us. The real magic of language is that it allows people to share their thoughts with others. This means you don't have to face the world by yourself-you can learn from ideas created by the elderly. This lets humans develop science and technology, laws and stories. People can think without language, but language makes humans so smart. 

①Cameron is a great businessman(商人). He knows how to sell things. 

②When he was nine years old, he got his first computer. Did he play games on it? No! He had his first business with it! He made cards on his computer. Then, he sold them. He sold things online, such as his sister's old toys. Then, he got more new toys. He sold them, too. He was able to sell 40 toys every day! Cameron made $50, 000 that year. 

③How does Cameron learn to do this? His family helps. His father has a company(公司). Cameron's parents often talk to him about making money. 

④Cameron is a good writer,too.He writes well about the things he sells. You may want to buy his things after reading that. And he has great ideas. Cameron looks for ways to help his father sometimes. 

⑤"You do not have to make a lot of money to be happy, " Cameron says. A business can be big or small. No one is too old to have a business. And, no one is too young!

OPEN LEGO

 For children: aged 5-12     Date: Saturday, February 17th 2024

 Time:2:00 p. m. -4:30 p. m.    Place: Main Library

★Come here and play with Lego!

★We prepare enough Lego bricks for you. 

★We also prepare some Lego idea books and Lego pictures for you. 

★We get ready to play Lego videos for you. 

 You can use your imagination to design your own structure(结构)! We will choose ten wonderfuli structures. Then we will show them in our library for a month. If your structure is chosen, you can geta set of Lego bricks and a beautiful toy as a prize. 

 Address: Main Library, 49 Lexington Street Tel:5085507