It's time to rock and roll. Glide, wobble, balance, and slither. Let's try something new to get ourselves moving. Did you know that the part of the brain that deals with balance, also deals with focus? Isn't that interesting. An educational specialist told me that the other day. One of my sons is going to see her each week to increase his reading abilities. I am really intrigued to see what she will do, and what the effects will be. I would like to pick her brains. One of the things that she recommends for children who need to control their focus, are balancing exercises. So, another trip to Walmart, and we have a Slither scooter. It's a super duper one. It's actually a combination of two things: a regular scooter, and a rip stick. I won't go into detail about what a rip stick is because it will actually take too long, but I think you get the gist. If you check out one of my previous podcast, 'A Refreshing Park', you will get more of an idea about what a rip stick is. So, we have the box in the kitchen, and my two oldest pounce on it like a couple of cougars. They immediately tear the box open, and start putting the thing together. "Shouldn't you read the instructions?" I ask them. My experience is that males will often put something together, and then later have to take it apart and start all over again, this time reading the instructions. I could be wrong though, ....... I shouldn't generalize, so you men out there, please don't get offended. But of course, mothers are always wrong, right? So, I let them get stuck at one point, and then intervened, pushing the instruction manual under their noses. And guess what happened? They followed the instructions, and put it together correctly! Mmm, am I making my point clearly? Anyway, they all tried the super dooper Slither scooter on our driveway. They described it as "cool", "difficult", "awesome", and "tricky". That means that they like it. I'm going to try it tomorrow to see if it will help me to super duper up my focus.

Grammar notes.

Expressions and vocabulary: to pick someone's brains, the gist, to pounce.

1. He knows so much about history; I should pick his brains about the First World War.

2. The gist of his speech was that the company needs to expand into new territories.

3. If the rabbit doesn't run and hide, the fox will pounce on it.