Idioms...Literally

Nicole C., 9, FIS

Write about the idiom “When pigs fly…”

Pigs are flying with all their might. I’m watching it with my mouth open. The dogs are barking at the pigs. Then, one of the pigs falls down on my head, thean another falls onto my mom’s head. “Bacon for tonight!” screamed my mom.

Write about the idioms “Keep an eye on it” and “Lend me your ears.”

Often my mom tells me to “keep an eye on it” or “lend me your ears.” I mean, how can I chop off my ears and give it to her? How can I peel my eyes off and put them on my book?

Write about the idiom “Don’t cry over spilt milk!”

I didn’t win the dance competition, so I was really upset, but my mom reminded me, “Don’t cry over spilt milk!” Then someone dropped their cup and milk started spilling out! I immediately stopped crying!

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Markandaya K., 8, RCHK

Write about the idiom “I’m on top of the world!”

I’m standing on top of the world in the Arctic. Pink dolphins greet me by shaking my hand. They make a tower of dolphins. I climb up. I am standing on top of the world.

      

      Write about the idiom “It's raining cats and dogs.”

      It's raining cats and dogs. Cats are meowing and dogs are barking. I can't stand the noise so I go out and use my teleporter to send the dogs and cats to the ocean. Ahhh. Peace and quiet. Suddenly, it rains fishes and sharks! I do the same things with the animals. After that it rains elephants and ducks! I have enough of it so I try and be brave. It  was just a dream.

The Importance of Standing

Jared C., 14, HKIS

        There are many cases across the globe of excessive sitting affecting the life span of people. When people sit down too much, their metabolism slows down, their insulin becomes less effective and the probability of catching type 2 diabetes rises. This is exactly why offices should be redesigned to allow less sitting and encourage more standing. It is possible to redesign the offices in such a way that people will not be standing for the entire day and still cut down the amount of hours they spend sitting during working hours. Redesigning the offices in this way can be done by changing all the desks in the office into standing desks and moving supplies further away from the workspace to encourage more walking. For those who want to sit occasionally, they can provide high chairs for the standing desks.

         Replacing all the desks with standing desks is very good for a person’s health as standing desks allow more mobility. They allow you to move around to get things needed to finish the work. These desks are good because sitting down reduces the effectiveness of the insulin in a human and raises the chance of developing type 2 diabetes. Standing, on the other hand, lets the person move around therefore tripling his or her calorie burning rate and maintaining his or her metabolic health. Since standing up is such a good thing health-wise, it should be encouraged wherever a person goes.

         The next thing that could be done is to move supplies further away from the workspace. This encourages more walking. Research shows that the people who do not gain too much weight are the people who do little things like take the stairs, walk down the hall to get office supplies, or simply like to fidget. This means that people will not gain too much weight even if they do not exercise and tend to eat large portions of food. Seeing that walking around gives even more health benefits, and office should be rearranged to promote more walking around.

       Even though there is an uncountable amount of health benefits that can come from moving around and walking a little bit more, people still cannot be standing up for th entire day. So, something that can be implemented into the redesigning of the office is tall chairs. The time spent sitting on these chairs must be limited or the redesigning idea of the office will simply backfire but standing up too much will cause other problems too. Obviously, there has to be a balance between sitting down and standing up in the office, so having tall chairs in the office is not necessarily a bad idea.

         To conclude, the countless health benefits are too large to ignore by not taking any action. On the other hand, there also must be a balance between the amount of time spent sitting down and the amount of time spent standing up, so tall chairs are also a good idea.

Should Students Receive Awards for Doing Well?

Kyle H., 10, SPCCPS

       Students shouldn’t receive awards for school performance because students will start to expect more rewards. If parents start giving rewards, it will not put the focus on learning and the kids will be spoiled.

        If parents start to give awards to students, they may work harder. however, if they start getting awards for a long time, they may think that they don’t need to work hard to get awards and will also expect to get even more awards.

        Secondly, if parents give awards, students will start to focus on thinking how to earn gifts or earn money more than focusing on studying or learning new things that are useful when students grow bigger as grown ups.

        Lastly, students would be spoiled! They won’t study hard after getting so many awards and gifts by parents and will think that it is enough for them and think that it doesn’t matter if they have awards or not and will be as lazy as pigs!

        In conclusion, giving awards to students may make them study hard, but after some time, students will be lazy and wil not be eager to work, study properly and care about good grades.

Good Jobs

Crystal L, 12, SIS

        The most important things to consider when pursuing a job is whether it is enjoyable, if there is a good boss, and the amount of money you make. Considering whether the job is enjoyable or not is important because most of your life would be spent at work, and if work is not enjoyable then the person’s life would not be as meaningful as well. Whether the person has a good boss or not needs to be considered as well because it will contribute to their happiness. Last but not least, the amount of money that person earns needs to be considered because that’s’ the main point of working: to earn money.

        Firstly, whether the job makes the person happy needs to be considered because that person would be spending most of their life at work, so even their life out of work would be affected. If the person is unhappy, it would lead to depression, stress, and even an early death. She or he might also want to have a job because that person is passionate about it. Even the work hours or location might not matter to the person anymore because of how much she or he likes the job, and that they look forward to going to work every day. It would also be best for the person if she or he is being paid for something they love to do.

        Next, whether you have a good boss or not needs to be considered because it would affect your happiness. Work colleagues also count because you will need to build relationships and respect the people the person works with so that the boss and colleagues will respect them back. The people the employee works with will also affect their work quality. Since work is one of the best places to make new friends, it would be hard ignoring them all day if the employee is not able to work with them. She or he would not be able to gain any new friends from work as well and might be blacklisted through the whole company.

        Thirdly, the amount of money needs to be considered because that is the main reason for the person to go to work. The person would need to think about whether they have enough money to pay rent, support your family, save, and buy food. The location also needs to be considered because if the person is spending too much money on transport then it would affect their lives as well. If the person is not able to pay rent or buy food because of their lack of money, there would be no reason for them to stay working at that place.

        The most important things to consider when pursuing a job is whether it is enjoyable or not, if the person has a good boss or work colleagues, and the amount of money you earn. Whether or not it is enjoyable affects the employee, it would affect their life a lot. Next is whether the person has a good boss or work colleagues because it contributes to their happiness and affects their work quality. Last but not least the amount of money has to be considered because it is one of the main points of working. Salary, how good the boss is, and whether it makes the person happy are important things to consider when pursuing a job.