A Doll Comes To Visit

You are a fifth-grade girl who comes home from school to find a doll on your front porch. The doll looks like you, is dressed like you, and there is something about the eyes. Who left it? Why is it here? And what makes this doll so special?

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With a Little Help From My Friend

Jim Jenkins is an ace detective who solves the most difficult crimes. Yet he always works alone. Or does he?

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The Boy Who Could Wiggle His Ears

Learning how to wiggle your ears is really hard. But you can do it if you keep trying. And if you learn to keep trying, no problem is too big. So if you can wiggle your ears, you can do anything!

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A Good-News Story About Refugees

I’ve been reading  a book entitled The Greatest War Stories Never Told by Rick Beyer and I came across something worth sharing. In September, 1943, Adolf Hitler ordered Denmark’s Jewish population to be deported to the death camps.  The logistics were put in place and more than a thousand German police and Gestapo moved into

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The Verdict on “Baby Think It Over”

Whenever I teach in middle school, it’s not unusual to see girls with babies.  Not real babies (thankfully), but realistic dolls that mimic a child’s needs.  Their job is to care for this doll as if it was alive, including middle-of-the-night demands.  I don’t know how long the assignment lasts, but it’s a mandatory part

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Could There Be a Fifth Force of Nature?

There’s a lot about this world we still don’t understand.  That includes theoretical physics (especially for me). Scientists recognize four fundamental natural forces.  They are gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces found inside atoms.  Could there be a fifth? Basically, maybe.  On August 14, 2016, physicists at University of California, Irvine (UCI)

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Are Trolls Ruining the Internet?

Have you seen this week’s Time magazine?  The cover story has the provocative title of “Why We’re Losing the Internet to the Culture of Hate” by Joel Stein.  Stein usually writes more humorous pieces as “The Awesome Column”.  Sometimes his less-serious writing style doesn’t match well with the length of a cover story, but not

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Thought From the Olympics — Do Athletic Rituals Work?

If you’ve been watching the Olympics, you may have noticed some athletes engage in certain pre-competition rituals.  For example, sprinter Usain Bolt always points to the sky.  Why? An article on the Quartz website written by Olivia Goldhill (http://qz.com/757757/athletes-who-wear-lucky-socks-arent-wrong-psychologists-say-superstitions-yield-real-advantages/) tries to answer that question.  So much of what athletes undergo is beyond their control, like

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