Twirling Skye
My name is Skye, and I am eleven years old. I belong to Riverside Reflections, which is a baton twirling team.
My mum teaches us how to twirl, and sets our routines for us. She started twirling when she was five years old, which is quite a long time ago!! I started doing it properly when I was about five.
If you don’t know what twirling is, I’ll try to explain. A baton is a metal stick that is weighted at both ends, and has rubber to cover these ends. It is quite heavy, and hurts if it hits you, so you have to practise lots so you don’t drop it on your head!
I Love You Natty – A Siblings Introduction to Down’s Syndrome
My name is Mia and I’m ten years old.
I’m the first person in my family to write a book. It’s called I Love You Natty and is about my younger sister who has Down’s syndrome. Natty is 7 and there isn’t anything particularly ‘special’ about her, but she does have an extra chromosome in every cell of her body, which looks like a jelly bean.
She needs some extra help sometimes, for example I learnt Makaton to talk with my hands with her. She used to have physio therapy and also had surgery on her heart when she was small. But we all need support sometimes don’t we?
Most of all Natty is just my little sister. I love that when she was small she would force herself to open her eyes to look at me because she recognised my voice. I love Natty and my life wouldn’t be the same without her.
I wrote this book with Mum so that other children could understand what Down’s syndrome means. I did lots of drawings and we chose lots of family photographs to go in the book too.
I hope you enjoy it. Natty does.
You can order I Love You Natty on Amazon or via your local bookstore
The Ultimate Guide for Kids to Pack Your Own Suitcase
Welcome to our ultimate guide for kids to pack your own suitcase!
When I was a kid, my parents were Scout leaders and one of their rules was that kids should pack their own suitcases. My mum always said that if the kids packed themselves, they knew what they had in their bag or rucksack and how to find things. And they were able to pack to go home.
Now I have my own kids, I can see exactly what she meant. My kids have been packing their own suitcases since they were little. In the beginning, I’d check to ensure that they didn’t have 12 t-shirts and one pair of trousers for a week-long holiday but now I just remind them to take their toothbrush and any vital pieces of kit.
SCIENCE NEWS – Discovery of An Underground Ocean
Earth’s Underground Ocean
In 1864 the French author, Jules Verne, published his novel “Journey To The Interior of the Earth”. In this book 3 men explore volcanic tunnels that lead miles beneath the Earth’s surface, and have a number of strange encounters along the way. One of these is the discovery of a massive ocean, deep underground. Now, 150 years later, it seems that Monsieur Verne’s imagination may have been more accurate than he knew.
An enormous reservoir of water, roughly 3 times bigger than all of the Earth’s oceans put together, has been detected 400 miles below the surface. The water is trapped inside a layer of blue rock called ringwoodite, in the layer of hot rock between the Earth’s core and its surface) that is known as the mantle.