Animals live all over the world. They walk or crawl on land, fly in the air and swim in the water. Dogs, horses, sparrows, frogs, and worms are all animals. So are butterflies, goldfish, elephants, cockroaches, and snakes.
Animals may be of many shapes and sizes and some of them do not even look like animals. Many water animals look like plants growing on the rocks or in the sand under the water.
Plants and animals are different from each other in two important ways. First, plants cannot move by their own power as animals can, and, second, animals cannot make their own food as plants do.
There might be some doubt about a sponge. Is it an animal or a plant? The sponge does not fit the rule because it cannot move. Yet it is an animal because it does not make its own food. It lives by feeding on small animals in the water.
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The gloomy Colditz Castle was the most famous prisoner-of-war camp during the Second World War. The Germans thought that it was impossible to escape from it. Hermann Goering himself visited the castle at the beginning of the war and said that it was absolutely ‘escape-proof’.
So the Germans decided to use Colditz Castle as a special prison for ‘flight risks’ — people who had tried to escape from others prisoner-of-war camps. What they didn’t realise was that putting so many determined minds together, they were creating a truly international escape academy.
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Getting to the heart of colors
Is a ripe tomato red?
What colour is a ripe tomato? “Red, without a shadow of a doubt!” everybody would reply.
But we should have a little doubt…
For example, a diver, going down with a tomato in his hand, at a great depth would see the tomato changing colour: from dark green to grey, from yellow back to its natural red. So we can say that a tomato isn’t red, but it looks red in the light of the sun.
Sunlight is made up of a spectrum of coloured rays which go from red to violet passing through orange, yellow, green, blue and indigo.
When the light hits an object, it produces a strange phenomenon. If the object absorbs all the coloured rays, it appears black. If it doesn’t absorb any of the coloured rays, it appears white. And if it absorbs only some of the rays, it appears coloured.
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The rich ancient Egyptians liked parties and good food. They often wore cones of perfumed wax on their heads. The wax melted during the dinner and ran down in streams, cooling their faces.
In ancient Greece and Rome, guests at a banquet wore wreaths of plaited flowers and leaves. They believed these would prevent drunkenness.
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Psychology of colour
There are colours that we like and colours that we dislike. There are colours that make us feel happy and colours that make us feel sad.
Colours can make a big room look smaller or make a small room look larger. They can warm a cool room or cool a hot, sunny one. Warm colours contain red or yellow, and cool colours contain blue. The warm colours seem to bring things closer, and the cool ones tend to make objects seem farther away.
Colours have a strong influence on us. They can affect our moods and personalities, though we don’t always notice it.
Japanese psychologists made an interesting experiment. They asked a group of strangers to walk round two rooms, one painted red and the other blue. They found that in the red room, the people felt comfortable the moment they entered it. They began talking with each other and even laughing. But when they walked into the blue room, they fell silent.
Experiments have also shown that our blood pressure goes up in red surroundings and becomes lower in blue surroundings.
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Универсальное стихотворение о любви
Poets and lyricists have always been inspired by love. The Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote «My love is like a red red rose», and Shakespeare wrote «The course of true love never did run smooth». The Beatles wrote «She loves you». Now you have a chance to join the long list of poets who have written poems about love.
Here is a love poem that you can complete yourself! Try to be as poetic and romantic as you can!
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Интересно о крокодилах

Crocodile or alligator,
Who is who on the equator?
Which one ate up Auntie Norah,
Famous tropical explorer?

Do you know how to tell an alligator from a crocodile? Then try this quiz.
Only one of the following sentences is false. Which one?
1. Crocodiles and alligators are relatives. They belong to a large group of crocodilians.
2. Crocodilians are reptiles.
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