Home, Health & Style

What Makes a Family?

What does the word ‘family’ mean to you?  It can mean many things in our society. Some define family as a mother, a father and one or more children.  For others, there don’t need to be children in the home for there to be a family.  Where there are children, about three quarters of the parents will be married to each other.

In 2013 the Office of National Statistics, which is a government body which takes surveys on all manner of topics to help the government make policy (rules under which we all live), found that there were 18.2 million people living in this type of family.  Many more of us have families which have a different make-up.  For the purpose of the survey, a family is defined as people living in the same household.   

However, as many of you will know, there are other ways in which we describe our family.  There are children who have two parents of the same gender, there are children who have only one parent with whom they live, other children have guardians and live with aunts, uncles or grandparents. 

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Art & History, Language & Literature

Jump! into Etymology for Kids

Have you ever thought about languages, and how they develop over time?
Why do we say ‘tree’ when we look at a one of those green things outside our window, and where did the word ‘rose’ come from? (Can you tell that I am looking out of my window for inspiration?)
When we look at the links between the words that we use in English and those in a different country, we often find similarities. Information is the same in English, as in German and French, although the pronunciation is different.
The study of words is called etymology, and today Millie is going to explain a bit more about this, and tell us a bit about the word ‘JUMP’.

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Science, Nature and Tech

Who on Earth Invented Traffic Lights?!

Every day we use hundreds of inventions without even thinking about it. In this series, we’ll be celebrating some of the most overlooked inventions, finding out what inspired their inventors and maybe even a few unexpected tales along the way.  Contributor Sally Anne asks… “Who on Earth invented… Traffic Lights?!”

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