The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [30]
Go with your momentum, passing through a momentary handstand, and land your
right foot on the ground. Then, as you stand up, put your left foot on the ground, finishing in a lunge with your arms up, just the way you started.
Try it a couple of times, and keep in mind the rhythm of the cartwheel as you touch your left hand, then right hand, then right foot, then left foot on the ground. If you can pace yourself with that “hand, hand, foot, foot; one, two, three, four” rhythm, you’ll be well on your way to smooth, easy cartwheeling.
TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Once you’ve got this down, try doing a cartwheel one-handed—just don’t put that second hand down! This will mean kicking your legs over a bit harder than with a twohanded cartwheel, but once you get the hang of it you’ll be windmilling with the best of them.
TIPS
Make sure you have enough room!
Keep your stomach sucked in to help support your whole body.
Aim for keeping your legs straight and your toes pointed.
Starting in a lunge is a good way to practice, but once you’re secure with it, you can also try cartwheeling from a run and hop approach. It is also easier to do multiple cartwheels in a row using the momentum of a full running approach.
Doing a Back Walk-Over
If you can go into a back-bend from a standing position, you can most likely do a back walk-over. Before trying a back walk-over, it’s a good idea to practice back-bends, making sure your arms are strong enough not to collapse when you land your hands on the ground. Otherwise you’ll land on your head, and while that may appear amusing to onlookers, it won’t feel that way to you. If you haven’t done a standing back-bend or a back walk-over by yourself before, don’t try it alone—have an adult help you by holding your waist as you go over.
Start standing up, with plenty of room behind you. If you’re right-handed, put your right leg in front, toe pointed. If you’re left-handed, lead with your left leg. Put your arms up and look straight ahead. Your arms should be straight and solid, like in cartwheel, and they should be right up against your ears. They should also stay right there through the entire move. You can look up at your hands, but try not to tip your head back.
Begin bending backwards, keeping your leading leg pointed out in front of your other leg.
When your hands touch the ground, push up through your supporting leg.
Kick over with your leading leg into a kind of split handstand.
After you pass through the split handstand, your leading leg should come down first, then your other leg. Stand up straight, with your arms still up by your ears, finishing in the same position in which you started.
TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Once you can do a back walk-over with ease, mix it up by landing in a split instead of on your feet. Just slide that leading leg down and through your arms instead of placing it on the ground to finish the move.
TIPS
Squeeze those arms next to your ears.
Use a wall to help you practice. Lie down on the floor with your feet close to the wall and go into a bridge. Push down from your shoulders onto your hands so that the weight is off your feet, and walk your feet up the wall. From there, kick into a handstand. Once you’ve got the hang of that, kick all the way over to standing.
Weather
Signs, Clouds, Vocabulary, and Famous Poems About the Weather
WEATHER SIGNS
METEOROLOGISTS use Doppler radar, weather balloons, satellites, and computers to give fairly accurate predictions of what the weather will be like in the near future. But even before we had computerized weather forecasts, we had ways to interpret and predict the weather. Generations ago, people passed down their knowledge about weather signs through rhymes and sayings they taught to their children. As it turns out, those rhyming proverbs based on the observations and wisdom of sailors, farmers, and other outdoorspeople are grounded not only in experience but also in science. So if you’re out camping, or hiking, or traveling on foot in nature, far away from technology, you can