Improve Your Communication Skills
3 Tips to Make your New Year’s Resolution Stick!
So the new year has begun and you’ve made a New Year’s resolution. How can you make sure it doesn’t go out the window by February? Perhaps these tips for sticking to your resolution will help…
New Year’s Resolution Tip #1: Be specific
Lots of people give up on their resolutions because they choose ones that are too big, vague and overwhelming. Whether your resolution is to do more sport, be a better friend, take up photography or anything else, you have a better chance of making it happen if you narrow it down.
For example, if your resolution is to be a better friend, make it your mission to remember your friends’ birthdays and to write a card for them, or to ask them often about what’s going on their lives. If you want to get more involved in sport, find out what sports your school or community offers and decide on a class to take or a team to sign up for. That way you have somewhere specific to start!
Good Teachers, Mean Teachers
I am Alice, and I am 10 years old.
My hobby is writing, and I really like English and Spelling, maybe because I find them easy.
I used to have a hamster, Nibbles, but he escaped and we haven’t seen him since. I like animals, very much, but I don’t think I am great with them.
This article is about my school teachers.
What is Biotechnology?
Perhaps you have heard of the term biotechnology and wondered what it is. You may think you know already – after all, the parts that make up the word are very familiar: bio + technology. You have seen the first part of the word in biology, antibiotics, all sorts of words. It comes from Greek bios, which means ‘life’.
As for technology, it is not just about computers and smartphones. Technology is the practical use of knowledge to create useful things and solve problems. You might like to think of it as tech-knowledge-y. So, taking it one step further, biotechnology is about using biology in technology.
We talked to Alessandra Iscaro, a biotechnology researcher at the University of Florence, Italy, and she explained to us what it is all about.
Falconry and the Tudors
When you write a book that is set in a particular period of history, it is important to get the details correct. This means that writers of historical fiction have to do a lot of research.
The first scene of Katharine Edgar’s novel, Five Wounds takes place on a hillside in sixteenth century England, where her heroine, Nan, is hoping to see her young merlin falcon make its first kill. Katharine had find out all about falconry and the Tudors – the keeping and training of falcons, and other birds of prey.
When I showed the first scene of Five Wounds to some writing friends, some of them asked a question I wasn’t expecting. ‘How rich is Nan’s family? They live in a big house so why does she need to hunt for food?’
Good question!
12 Steps to Becoming a Self-Confident Kid
Do you ever wish you were more confident? Do you watch other kids standing in front of the class, and presenting their work, and wish you be that self-confident kid?
We often talk about self-confidence and self-esteem in tweens. These two are linked, but slightly different. Self-esteem is about how you feel about yourself, how you value your abilities and yourself. Self-confidence is about how you feel about your abilities, about trusting yourself to do something.
You could have a high self-esteem generally, but have low self-confidence in a particular area, e.g. doing maths, or standing in front of the classroom and presenting a book report.
We often split people into ‘confident’ and ‘not confident’, but we can all learn to be more confident. It just takes a bit of practice. Here are our top tips for increasing self-confidence and self-esteem!