The Daring Book for Girls
Page 28
[touch your knee for each “knee, knee, knee”]
3. Three sailors went to land, land, land to see what they could land, land, land…etc.
[put your arms one on top of the other out in front of you for each “land, land, land”]
4. Three sailors went to DIZ-KNEE-LAND To see what they could DIZ-KNEE-LAND But all that they could DIZ-KNEE-LAND Was the bottom of the deep blue DIZ-KNEE-LAND
[perform all three signs for each “DIZ-KNEE-LAND”]
MISS MARY MACK
(This rhyme uses the “Cross-Arms” pattern.)
Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack All dressed in black, black, black With silver buttons, buttons, buttons All down her back, back, back She asked her mother, mother, mother For fifty cents, cents, cents To see the elephant, elephant, elephant Jump over the fence, fence, fence He jumped so high, high, high He reached the sky, sky, sky And he never came back, back, back Till the 4th of July, ly, ly.
(Alternate ending: girls point and shout “You lie!” after the last line about July.)
MISS SUSIE HAD A STEAMBOAT
(this rhyme uses the “Up-Down” pattern)
Miss Susie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell Miss Susie went to heaven, the steamboat went to—HELLO, operator, please give me number nine and if you disconnect me, I’ll kick you from—BEHIND the ’frigerator there was a piece of glass, Miss Susie fell upon it and broke her little—ASK me no more questions, I’ll tell you no more lies, Miss Susie’s in the kitchen, Making her mud pies.
SAY, SAY, OH PLAYMATE
(This rhyme uses the “Back-Front Double Clap,” with a small “intro” and a small “ending.” Intro: on the words “say, say, oh” you grab hands and swing them toward each other for the first “say,” back out for the next “say,” and then clap your hands together on “oh,” then begin the Back-Front pattern. Ending: at the words “forever more,” on the first and second “more”s you clap hands with your partner then clap hands yourself, then on the words “shut the door!” you clap hands with your partner three times.)
Say, say, oh playmate, Come out and play with me And bring your dollies three, Climb up my apple tree. Slide down my rainbow, Into my cellar door, And we’ll be jolly friends Forever more, more, shut the door!
(sometimes this verse is followed with:
I’m sorry playmate, I can not play with you. My dolly has the flu, Boo-hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo. Ain’t got no rainbow, Ain’t got no cellar door, But we’ll still be jolly friends Forever more more, ever more!)
Finance: Interest, Stocks, and Bonds
WE’VE ALL HEARD THE SAYINGS: “Time is money” and “Put your money where your mouth is.” Despite its reputation as being “the root of all evil,” money is, most basically, anything that is used as a means of payment. Today we use paper, coins, and plastic cards; in the past, people used rocks, tobacco leaves, cigarettes, and gold and silver. Money buys us everything from food to fun, and it’s important to think about money now because pretty soon you’ll be in charge of your own money, and the more you understand about it, the more you will be able to make good use of it. Part of learning about money includes knowing where to put your savings, which is the money you keep instead of spending. The value of your savings increases differently, depending on what you do with it.
INTEREST
When you put money in a bank account, you are actually lending your money to the bank. For the privilege of doing this, the bank pays you a tiny bit each year to “rent” your money. This is called interest. You can take your money out of the bank if you need to, but while it’s in there, the bank pays you interest—usually a set percent of every dollar that you keep in your account, called an interest rate. So if the annual interest rate is 5% and you put $100 in your bank account, at the end of one year you’ll have $105.
COMPOUNDING
Thanks to something called compounding, your money can turn into even more money. If you keep that $105 in the bank for another year, now you’re earning 5% interest on $105. So in other words, after two years, the $100 you started with will turn into $110.25. And all you had to do was not spend it. If you saved that $100 for twenty years, with the interest compounding every year you’d end up with $265.33. Without compounding interest, that $100 would only turn into $200 after twenty years.
Compounding interest is why saving even little bits of money can add up to much more later. However, compounding works against you when you are the one borrowing the money—which is what you are doing when you use a credit card. (It might feel like free money, but it’s not!) When you buy things with a credit card, you’re the one borrowing money, so you’re the one being charged interest—interest that compounds. So if you spend money using a credit card and you don’t pay off your debt every month when the bill comes due, the $100 you spent turns out to cost you much more.
INVESTING: STOCKS, BONDS, AND MUTUAL FUNDS
Putting your money in a savings account is just one way to invest it, or make your money earn money. There are other ways to invest money, but they are riskier, which means while you might earn more, you can also lose some (or all) of your money. Dealing with money means figuring out how much risk you want to take for different kinds of possible rewards.
Stocks
Stock is ownership of a company. When you buy stock (one piece of which is called a share) in a company, that makes you a stockholder (also called a shareholder), and the more stock you own, the bigger your stake in the company. Owning stock means that you own a small piece of the company—so when a company does well and makes money, you make money too. And if it does badly, well, you can lose money instead.
The price of stock can vary from pennies to thousands of dollars, depending on the company. You get to decide when to buy a stock and when to sell a stock. You do this through a stock broker or directly through the company. The idea is to buy low and sell high to make a profit: buying shares of a stock when it’s priced low and then selling that stock at a higher price is one way you make money on your investment with stocks. Stocks are bought and sold—traded—in stock markets, like the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange, or NASDAQ. You can follow the progress of your stock in the newspaper, on television, or on the Internet.
The other way to make money with stocks is when companies pay out dividends—money paid to all the stockholders every year, the amount of which varies depending on how much a company earns.
Bonds
A bond is basically an “IOU.” When you buy a bond, you are lending your money to a company or government, which they will pay you back later. Bonds give you an interest rate that is generally higher than what you’re going to get in a savings account. The interest is worked into the bond price, and you get both the interest and your money back on the “maturity date.”
Mutual Funds
Mutual funds are another way to invest your money. With mutual funds, a money manager—a person whose job it is to know about investments—decides what stocks and bonds to buy and sell. When you buy into a mutual fund, you buy shares in the fund the same way you buy a share of a single company, but instead you’re putting your money into a big collection (a “fund”) that the money manager uses to buy and sell investments to make money for you. Of course, she keeps a little piece for herself in the end.
Mutual funds are one way to balance out risk, as they involve diversification. When you diversify your investments, you make an effort to not put all your money in one risky thing, or all your money in one safe thing. Instead, you put a little into something more risky, a little into something safe, and a little into something in between.
Marco Polo and Water Polo
ACCESS TO A POOL, lake, pond, creek, river, stream, ocean, or garden hose is critical on a hot summer day. Contests are always fun: swimming stroke races (on your mark, get set, go!), diving, and seeing who can make up the funniest jumps. Cannonballs are great fun, as you run off the diving board, hurl into the air, grab onto your legs, and make a huge splash. Underwat
er tricks like handstands and multiple back flips are also a nice way to cool off, as are attempts to mimic the intricacies of synchronized swimming. On a rainy day, you can watch old movies by water-ballet star Esther Williams for inspiration.
With water games, the main challenge is usually not the game itself, at least once you’re on your way to mastering swimming—it’s your nose, and how to keep water from rushing into it. You have three choices:
Breathe out sharply through your nose as you jump or duck underwater. The air coming out of your nose will keep water out.
Use one hand to hold your nose.
Find yourself an old-fashioned nose plug, the kind attached to the front of a rubber necklace. Clip your nose shut.
Thus prepared, below are a couple of aquatic games for those who can get to a pool or other slow-moving body of water.
MARCO POLO
* * *
The famed explorer Marco Polo was seventeen when he left Venice, Italy, to join his dad and uncle on a horseback journey to China. He did not return home for twenty-four years. While traveling, he befriended the Emperor Kublai Khan and was one of the first Western travelers of the Silk Road. He was fascinated by China’s use of paper money and its intricate postal delivery system, innovations that far outstripped Europe’s development at the time.
How Marco Polo’s name got attached the internationally known pool game, no one knows, but here are the rules.
You need at least three kids, and everyone starts in the water. One person is It, and her goal is to tag the other kids. She closes her eyes, thus blinded (or you can use your handy bandana for a blindfold). Then she counts to five, or whatever number you all agree on. To try to find the other kids without seeing them, It must listen and sense where they are. Whenever she wants, she yells “Marco.” Everyone in the game must immediately respond “Polo.” The girl who is It uses the sounds of the other kids’ movements and voices to find and tag someone. Whomever she tags becomes the new It.
VARIATIONS
* * *
Now, there are some alterations you can employ to make Marco Polo even more amusing and challenging. If you choose to, you can allow “fish out of water.” This means the non-It kids can get out of the pool. However, at any time, It can yell “fish out of water” and if someone is out of the pool, that person automatically becomes the new It. If no one is out of the water, the other players often yell “no.” (Hint: This can help It reorient and find them, too.)
You can also allow “mermaid on the rocks,” which is similar to “fish out of water.” If someone is a mermaid on the rocks, she is sitting on the ledge of the pool or the lakeshore with only her feet in the water. Again, if It yells “mermaid on the rocks,” any mermaid becomes the new It. For either of these out-of-the-water variations, if It calls for fish or mermaids and there are none, she must do the start-of-game countdown again.
Another fun addition is “alligator eyes,” which allows It to call out “alligator eyes” (or “submarine,” if you prefer) and then swim underwater with eyes open for one breath. Usually It is allowed to use this only once. We’ve heard of some places where It is allowed to go underwater and look around any time, but cannot move until she is above water with eyes closed or blindfold on again. We haven’t played this one, but you may want to try it.
Other Marco Polo variations are popular in different places throughout the globe. In Argentina, kids play a version where It has to say the name of whoever she tags. If she is right, the tagged person becomes It, but if she is wrong, she remains It and starts her countdown again. In California, they play “Sharks and Minnows” (called “Silent Witness” other places), which means there is no call and respond, just the sounds of kids moving in the water.
WATER POLO
* * *
While Marco Polo can thank the real Marco Polo for its name. water polo’s comes from the game’s rubber ball, which came from India, where the word for ball is pulu, hence polo.
Water polo was invented in England in the 1870s, though a similar kind of game may have been played in rivers in Africa, and in flooded rice paddies in China, many centuries before. While water polo claimed to resemble rugby, in practice it was more akin to underwater wrestling, with players hitting and ducking each other underwater with great regularity. Players would protect the ball by sticking it in their swimsuit and swimming underwater toward the goal. A much-loved but extremely dangerous water polo feat had one player jumping off the backs of teammates, and flying through the air, ball in hand, toward the opposing goal.
Good thing the more civilized “Scottish” rules replaced the former free-for-all. The new rules instituted fouls for pushing and hitting, declared that the ball had to stay above water (no more bathing-suit tricks!), and stated that only a player holding the ball can be tackled (thus lowering the number of players who ended the game in the emergency room).
HOW TO PLAY
* * *
A water polo team has six field swimmers and a goalie. Teammates pass the ball and keep it from the other side, until one of them can lob it into the goal and score. To move forward in water polo you swim with your head out of water, since you’ll need to see where the ball is. To backstroke, you sit in the water, use your arms to make small short strokes, and use the eggbeater kick to stay up and moving: as you sit in the water, bend your knees, and circle each leg toward the other, like an eggbeater.
Rules:
♦ You can touch the ball with your hands—though with only one hand at a time, which means you’ll catch the ball and pass it quickly.
♦ Don’t touch the bottom of the pool. This sport is about constant motion, no rest, and never touching bottom.
♦ No pushing, pulling, hitting, or holding on to the other players—that’s a foul. Fouls also are called if you hold the ball under water, touch it with two hands, or hold onto it longer than 35 seconds; or if you touch bottom, push off the side of the pool, or use bad language.
While Marco Polo will never be an Olympic sport, water polo is. Male Olympians have played water polo since 1900. Ever since the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, women’s water polo has been on the roster, too, and there’s a terrific story behind its entry. After a decade or two of polite behind-the-scenes negotiation with the International Olympic Committee, the Australian women’s national water polo team pushed the issue. The upcoming Olympics were on their turf, after all, and they wanted to compete. In 1998, members of the Olympic leadership were set to arrive at the Sydney airport, in town for a planning visit. Led by their goalkeeper Liz Weekes—she’s called the team’s “glamour girl” because she’s also a model—the Aussie women water polo players put on their swimsuits and caps and strode through the Sydney airport to meet them, and, very much in the public eye, they asked again to be included, and met with success.
Better yet, after fighting so hard to be included, the Australian women’s team won the gold medal, with player Yvette Higgins scoring the winning goal during the last second of the championship game, to the applause of fans who filled the stadium.
A Short History of Women Olympic Firsts
1000 BC
Ancient Greece
Women, barred from competing in the all-male Olympics, instead have their own athletic games of Hera every four years from about 1000 BC. Prizes are pomegranates, olive wreaths, and a slice of a sacrificial cow. (By contrast, the prizes for the men’s Ancient Olympic chariot races are women.)
440 BC
Ancient Greece
Kallipateria is the first female Olympic boxing coach.
392 BC
Ancient Greece
Kynisca, a Spartan princess, becomes the first female Olympic champion when her horses and chariot compete and win in the Ancient Olympic Games. She will go on to become the first woman champion horse trainer.
1896
Summer Games: Athens, Greece
The first modern Olympics. Women are not allowed to compete, but a Greek woman, Stamati Revithi, unofficially runs
the marathon; refused entry to the stadium, she finishes her final lap outside. Athletics officials referred to her as “Melpomene,” the Greek muse of Tragedy.
1900
Summer Games: Paris, France
The first modern Games to include female competitors. Helen de Pourtales of Switzerland (Yachting), Elvira Guerra of France (Equestrianism), Mme Ohnier and Madame Depres of France (Croquet), Charlotte Cooper of Great Britain (Tennis), Margaret Abbott of the United States (Golf), and Madame Maison of France (Ballooning) are the first women to compete in the modern Olympics. Golfer Margaret Abbott is the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
1904
Summer Games: St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Lydia Scott Howell wins the first gold medal in archery, an unofficial Olympic sport at these games. Women’s boxing is included for the first time as an exhibition sport.
1906
Summer Games: Athens, Greece
Danish women take part in a gymnastics demonstration; it won’t be until 1928 that women’s gymnastics becomes an official Olympic sport.
1908
Summer Games: London, England
Figure skater Madge Syers of Britain becomes the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal for skating. (In 1902, she entered the men’s world championships, since there was no world competition for women. She took second place.)
1912
Summer Games: Stockholm, Sweden
Australian Fanny Durak wins the first Olympic swimming gold medal awarded to women in the 100-meter freestyle. Highboard diving for women is also included for the first time. A fifteen-yearold British schoolgirl enters the modern pentathlon, but her entry is rejected: the event is men only. (It won’t be until 2000 that women are allowed to compete in the event.)