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!

  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...

  Smile! What do you see? A mouth, lips and teeth. Teeth help us to bite into our food and cut it up into smaller lumps. Different shaped teeth have different jobs. Some are shaped like spades and we use them to bite into food. Some are sharp and pointed, so as to shred the lumps of food into smaller bits. Then there are wide, flat teeth at the back of the mouth, which mash the food into a pulp. When we are born, we have no teeth that can be seen yet. The teeth are all hidden under our gums. When they start to develop, they can make the gums sore. This is called teething. We have more than one set of teeth. As small children, we get a set of milk teeth. There are only twenty of these milk teeth. They start to wobble and fall out when we are about six or seven. Then we get our next set of teeth. These adult teeth are much bigger and are all we get for the rest of our lives. So it is very important to keep them healthy. Inside the mouth, it is dark and wet. There are some living thin...

  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...