Teaching Kids to Read and Write

  A lizard has a slim body and a long tail. Lizards feed on insects. Lizards hatch from eggs, which are laid in the soil or hidden under rocks. Lizards need the sun. This is a common lizard sitting in the sun. In the tropics, lizards live in the houses and catch bugs and insects. Shinning skinks can run up steep rocks and tree trunks. The ring-tailed dragon runs on its back legs and jumps, to catch insects. The basilisk lizard runs on its back legs too. It can run across the top of a pond or river for several steps, without sinking. The frilled lizard has a big flap of skin around its neck. If it is attacked, it raises its frill to look bigger. This lizard is a thorny devil. It lives in deserts and feeds on ants. If a lizard is attacked, it can shed its tail. The lizard runs free, and just its tail is left. The lizard lives on and soon.. ..its tail will develop again!

  In the river, hidden under a rock, sits a crab. He is looking out for some food. He sees a floating scrap of fish, and nip! He grabs it. The fish floats up, with the crab hanging on to it. Up, up, up floats the crab with the scrap of fish. Then, suddenly, the crab is not in the river at all. He is not floating. He is dangling from some string. "Get him, get him!" the children shout. "Do not let him drop back into the river." The crab is dropped, not into the river but into a net. From the net he can see a bucket, with lots of crabs clambering about in it. The crab is added to the bucket. "We did it!" yell the children. "We are the winners!"' "We were the quickest to catch a hundred crabs!" they shout, jumping about. Then the children empty the bucket of crabs. The crabs all scatter and run along the muddy river bank. Back in the river, hidden under a rock, sits the crab. He is looking out for some food. https://drive.google.com/fi...

  Mushrooms and toadstools are a sort of fungus. Some are edible, but some are poisonous. It is very difficult to tell them apart. Mushrooms and toadstools have a stem that comes up from the ground with a cap on top. Under the cap, there are lines running out from the middle. These lines are called gills. On the gills are spores. Spores are the seeds of mushrooms and toadstools. There are thousands of spores on the gills of a mushroom. The spores travel I on the wind. When they land, they develop small white threads. Mushrooms or toadstools develop from these threads. Mushrooms and toadstools do not have roots. Instead the small white threads spread out from the stem under the ground. The stem is made up of these threads. Mushrooms are often found in rings. The threads under the ground travel out and so the ring gets a bit bigger. The threads and mushrooms in the middle of the ring die. Mushrooms and toadstools start out looking like small buttons. The gills under the cap cannot be...

  The ground under our feet seems solid and hard, but in fact there are lots of things under it. We live on a planet called Earth, which was formed a long time ago. The Earth is round in shape, like a ball. It is covered by a thin crust of rock. Rock is made up of things called minerals. This is one sort of rock, called granite. You can see the different minerals in the granite. This building is made from a sort of rock called limestone. Limestone is good for building things as it is strong and can be carved into shapes. Where limestone is found, there are often underground caves and holes. These are made by rain. Little by little, the rain digs caves and tunnels into the rock. As the rain drips, it mixes with some of the minerals from the limestone and together they form columns in the caves. The columns that hang down are called stalactites and those that stick up are called stalagmites. Explorers investigate underground caves and tunnels. They need hard hats, torches and sometim...

  Antarctica is the continent at the southern end of the Earth. It is big and very cold, with tall mountains and deep holes. The South Pole is at the farthest south point of all. It is very hard to get to the South Pole, and in 1900 (nineteen hundred) no one had been there yet. At that time, a man called Clement Markham was planning a trip to go to Antarctica. He chose a man called Robert Scott to head the trip. Scott was a sailor and a very determined person. On the trip, Scott and the rest of the explorers came very close to the South Pole, but they did not quite get there. They made maps of the parts of Antarctica that they had explored When they got home, Scott was made a captain and the trip became famous. All the same, Captain Scott was not satisfied. He was determined to go back to Antarctica and to get to the South Pole. So this time, he planned a trip to the Antarctic himself. He tried to think of everything. He had biscuits made that did not freeze in the cold! In 1910 (n...