Friendship is like planting a seed that you have found. The nurturing and taking care of this seed will determine how close you are to your friends and how much you can trust them. Having a best friend is great. You get to share your thoughts, dreams, fun times, problems, successes and failures with someone who knows, understands and cares about you. It is very important that he/she is around your age. In this week’s article, Making friends, you will find many dos and don’ts that will help you to make your friendship grow bigger and better as time passes.

Did you ever imagine that after a star is born, it goes through its adolescence and adulthood until it finally gets old and dies like a human being? Read more about these beautiful points of light in our sky, better known as stars in our article, The Life Cycle of a Star.

Would you like to take part in our competition and send us a drawing of your friends? Or else drop us a few lines about your friends together with their photo and tell us why you enjoy being in their company. The best entry wins a fantastic prize from Agenda Bookshop.

See you next Thursday

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Happy Birthday

Happy birthday wishes to our beloved NATHAN CASSAR who will be one on 15 October. Lots of love, hugs and kisses from mum and dad, nanna Annette and nannu David, nanna M’Rose and nannu Gaetu, uncles and aunties.

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SPACE AND THE UNIVERSE

The life cycle of a star

You are, or should be, asking yourself “Why do stars have different colours and sizes?” The answer is that stars, like people, come in different sizes and colours. The size and colour of a star tells us a lot about it, including how hot it is as well as how old it is.

Stars have a life cycle just like everything else in the universe. From their humble beginnings as a few atoms of matter, stars grow into large stellar furnaces that provide the beautiful points of lights that we see in the sky. Our own Sun, which is a yellow dwarf star, also provides heat and, directly or indirectly, all other forms of energy to those of us living on Earth.

After a star is born, it goes through its adolescence and adulthood until it finally gets old and dies. The death of a star can be quiet and calm or dramatic and violent, which is what happens when we say a supernova occurs.

A star is born

Where do stars come from? The answer to this question is that a star begins its life as just a few particles of gas and dust. These very humble beginnings can grow into a giant stellar furnace that gives off light and heat.

Stars come in a variety of sizes, masses and colours just like people do. The colour of a star, which is called its spectral type, tells astronomers how hot it is. Stars that are blue or blue-white in colour are much hotter than stars that are red.

A star grows up

After a star is born it spends its adult life, which can be as short as a few million to many billions of years, giving off light and heat to its surroundings. Adult stars range in size from tiny brown dwarfs to red super giants like Antares.

The death of a star

Even though stars can live for many billions of years, they must eventually die. The death of a star can be peaceful, when the star just winks out, or it can be as spectacular as a supernova explosion. Supernova explosion is when a star dies in a spectacular fashion by exploding. These explosions are so bright that they can be brighter than all the other stars in a galaxy combined!

The death of a star is part of the life cycle of the universe. When a star dies, the hydrogen and helium atoms that are left behind can become parts of new stars that are born later.

When larger stars die, their death creates the heavier elements like iron, carbon and silicon that are used to create new planets and their inhabitants.

http://www.dustbunny.com/afk/stars/lifecycle/

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Making friends

“Friendship is like planting a seed that you’ve found”

When you meet someone, you don’t know whether that person is going to become a good friend, so you have to be a bit careful at first. You are not quite sure what is going to come up so you have to be careful and nurture (look after) it. Friendship is like planting a seed that you’ve found. Maybe it won’t grow, in spite of your best efforts, maybe it will only grow into a weak and sickly plant, or it could grow into a horrible weed and you would have to pull it up. If all the conditions are right and you’ve really looked after it well then you could end up with a strong, flourishing plant that will continue to grow bigger and better as time passes. So what about friendships – how can you make them grow?

What to do

• See what others that you would like to be friends with do and join in with their plans unless you really disagree.

• If you don’t agree with their plans say so in a positive way, “I like this bit but maybe we could…”

• Accept people as they are. You can like other people even if you don’t agree with everything they say or do. You don’t have to know about or have an opinion on everything – in fact it is often better if you don’t.

• Be a good listener so that others can tell that you are really interested in what they are saying.

• Get to know people well by sharing “safe” thoughts with them first. What is a safe thought? It might be something about school or TV or your favourite hobbies. It isn’t always safe to tell someone you don’t know very personal things about you, like things you might be worried about or afraid of.

• Be a positive person; talk about the good things in your life. No one wants to be hassled by problems all the time.

• Don’t be a cruel gossip or tell tales… “She said… and I don’t think she likes… and she doesn’t want to be your friend.” Sounds familiar? If you’re lucky the person you meet may become a regular friend or even, after a long time, a best friend.

Be prepared

• Watch others who seem to be popular and see what they do.

• Look for a group who seem to have interests which you can share, or know something about.

• Find out about clubs, groups, sports, music, chess, whatever is happening in your school and join any in which you are interested or know something about.

• Helping others is a good way to make friends, so if you see someone who is struggling, ask if they would like some help – be kind not bossy.

http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetailsKids.aspx?p=335&np=286&id=1705

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My Friend

By: Jane S. Zion

My friend is nice.

We like to play

We play together every day.

We laugh and cry

And laugh again

Because, you see, we’re

Friends

Friends

Friends!