# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
SI Kids: Sports News for Kids, Kids Games and More

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
SI Kids: Sports News for Kids, Kids Games and More

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SI Kids provides a kid-first perspective of sports. Find sports news for kids, scores, kids games, photos and expert analysis of the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, soccer, and more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Joey Erace knocks pitch after pitch into the netting of his $15,000 backyard batting cage in southern New Jersey. His private hitting coach tells him to shorten his stride. The coach is charging $100 for this hour-long evening batting practice. It follows a $100 fielding lesson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, earlier in the day.

Constant training is essential for a top player like Joey. He has talents that are seeking. Joey is lightning quick. He can make slight body adjustments at the plate to drive the ball. "As long as he keeps putting in this work, he's going to be a really, really solid baseball player at a really, really high level," Dan Hennigan says. He is Joey's hitting coach. He is also a former minor league player.

Already, Joey has a nickname: Joey Baseball. He has more than 28,000 Instagram followers. Jewelry and apparel companies have asked him to their stuff. It's pretty impressive for a 10-year-old.

FINLAY MACKAY FOR TIME

An Early Start

Joey Erace represents a new reality for America's aspiring young athletes and their families. Across the nation, youth sports are changing. Kids are being swept up in nearly every team sport. Neighborhood Little Leagues, town soccer associations, and church basketball squads have been largely nudged aside. Young athletes are joining private club teams instead. The most competitive teams seek out the best talent and travel to national tournaments.

The cost for parents is steep. Some families spend more than 10% of their income on registration fees, travel, camps, and equipment. Joey's father says he has spent more than $30,000 on Joey's budding baseball career. A father from upstate New York says he spent $20,000 in one year for his daughter to play club volleyball. Much of it was spent on gas. Up to four nights a week, she commuted two and a half hours round-trip for practice. Other parents hand their children over entirely. A family from Ottawa, in Canada, sent their 13-year-old son to New Jersey for a full year to increase his ice time on the travel hockey circuit.

FINLAY MACKAY FOR TIME

Business is Booming

The U.S. youth-sports is now a $15.3 billion market, according to WinterGreen Research. The company tracks the youth-sports industry. Its research shows that the has grown by 55% since 2010.

There are upsides to the craze. Some kids thrive on intense competition. The best players receive an unprecedented level of coaching and training. And the travel circuit can bring people of different backgrounds together.

FINLAY MACKAY FOR TIME

However, recent studies show that early specialization in one sport increases the risk of injury, burnout, and depression. Additionally, rising costs, such as for team fees and travel, are pricing out lower-income families.

The Scholarship Scramble

With college costs skyrocketing, millions of parents hope their children will earn a sports scholarship. But only 2% of high school athletes go on to play at the top level of college sports, the NCAA's Division I.

Even so, college coaches are now courting middle schoolers. Kids learn early that it's to attend travel tournaments-and impress. Katherine Sinclair, 13, has played in basketball games in Philadelphia and New York City on the same day. But she the grind. "I don't have that long until I'm in eighth grade," she says. "That's when college scouts start looking at me."

Amid all the traveling and high-pressure tournaments, it can be hard to keep perspective. During a rare family vacation in Florida, Joey Erace was approached by a boy in a restaurant who asked for his autograph. But Joey has yet to learn cursive. He is, after all, only 10 years old. They snapped a picture instead.
Assessment: Click for a printable quiz. Teacher subscribers can find the answer key in this week's Teacher's Guide.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Joey Erace knocks pitch after pitch into the netting of his $15,000 backyard batting cage in southern New Jersey. His private hitting coach tells him to shorten his stride. The coach is charging $100 for this hour-long evening batting practice. It follows a $100 fielding lesson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, earlier in the day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A sport is commonly defined as an athletic activity or skill and involves a degree of competition, such as baseball, soccer, bowling, or basketball. Many people play sports with their friends. Sportsmen need coaches to teach or train teams or individuals how to do better. Sports can be played indoors or outdoors and by individuals or teams.

Some people like to watch other people play sports. Those who watch others playing sports are called . While some fans watch sports on television, others actually go to stadiums or other places where people pay to watch them in person. These fans are called spectators.

People engage in many kinds of sports, for example:

Related pages

Images for kids

Electronic sports are a recent development.

Spectators at the 1906 unofficial Olympic Games

Modern sports have complex rules and are highly organized.

A runner gives a friendly tap on the shoulder to a wheelchair racer during the Marathon International de Paris (Paris Marathon) in 2014.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A sport is commonly defined as an athletic activity or skill and involves a degree of competition, such as baseball, soccer, bowling, or basketball. Many people play sports with their friends. Sportsmen need coaches to teach or train teams or individuals how to do better.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In some sports one person competes against other individuals. Examples of these sports include boxing, wrestling, gymnastics, figure skating, diving, pole vaulting, long jumping, and horseback riding.

In team sports a group of people plays against another group, or team. A team may have as few as two members, or it may have many members. A doubles team in tennis has two players. Five players make up a basketball team. An ice hockey team has six players, and a baseball team has nine. Eleven players make up a football, soccer, or cricket team.

Sports can be amateur or professional. Amateur athletes do not get paid for participating in a sport. Professional athletes play for money.

Sports also can be organized or unorganized. Children who get together for neighborhood football games are playing unorganized sports. No organization controls their games. In organized sports athletes play for a school, a business, a club, a community, or some other organization. The organization schedules games and enforces the rules of the sport. Organized sports can be amateur or professional.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In some sports one person competes against other individuals. Examples of these sports include boxing, wrestling, gymnastics, figure skating, diving, pole vaulting, long jumping, and horseback riding. In team sports a group of people plays against another group, or team. A team may have as few as two members, or it may have many members.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Animals for Kids: Learn about your favorite animal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about animals including birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and fish. Endangered animals for teachers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about plants in the science of biology including the cell, what makes a plant, types of plants, fun facts, and the basic structure.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
DK Find Out! | Fun Facts for Kids on Animals, Earth, History and more!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Visit DK Find Out! to learn about dinosaurs, space, animals, nature & more. Fun learning activities for kids with videos, quizzes & galleries at DKFindOut.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Plants

Scientific classification

Superdivisions

Chlorokybophyta

Mesostigmatophyta

Spirotaenia

Chlorobionta Kenrick & Crane 1997

Streptobionta Kenrick & Crane 1997

Synonyms

Viridiplantae Cavalier-Smith 1981

Chlorobionta Jeffrey 1982, emend. Bremer 1985, emend. Lewis and McCourt 2004

Chlorobiota Kenrick and Crane 1997

Chloroplastida Adl et al., 2005

Phyta Barkley 1939 emend. Holt & Uidica 2007

Cormophyta Endlicher, 1836

Cormobionta Rothmaler, 1948

Euplanta Barkley, 1949

Telomobionta Takhtajan, 1964

Embryobionta Cronquist et al., 1966

Metaphyta Whittaker, 1969

Plants are one of five big groups ( kingdoms) of living things. They are autotrophic eukaryotes, which means they have complex cells, and make their own food. Usually they cannot move (not counting growth).

Plants include familiar types such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The scientific study of plants, known as botany, has identified about 350,000 extant (living) species of plants. Fungi and non-green algae are not classified as plants.

Most plants grow in the ground, with stems above, and roots below. Some float on water. Water and some nutrients come from the roots. Then climb the stem and reach the leaves. The evaporation of water from pores in the leaves pulls water through the plant. This is called transpiration.

A plant needs sunlight, carbon dioxide, minerals and water to make food by photosynthesis. A green substance in plants called chlorophyll traps the energy from the Sun needed to make food. Chlorophyll is mostly found in leaves, inside plastids, which are inside the leaf cells. The leaf can be thought of as a food factory. Leaves of plants vary in shape and size, but they are always the plant organ best suited to capture solar energy. Once the food is made in the leaf, it is transported to the other parts of the plant such as stems and roots.

The word "plant" can also mean to put something in the earth. For example, farmers plant seeds in the ground.

Types of plants

Green algae:

Land plants (embryophytes)

Vascular plants (tracheophytes)

Lycopodiophyta-clubmosses

Pteridophyta: the ferns

Pteridopsida: the typical ferns

Sphenopsida: the horsetails

Marattiopsida: a divergent group of ferns

Psilotopsida: sister-group to all other ferns

†Rhyniophyta-rhyniophytes

†Zosterophyllophyta-zosterophylls

†Trimerophytophyta-trimerophytes

†Progymnospermophyta

Seed plants (spermatophytes)

The plant food factory

At least some plant cells contain photosynthetic organelles ( plastids) which enable them to make food for themselves. With sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide, the plastids make sugars, the basic molecules needed by the plant. Free oxygen (O ₂) is produced as a by-product of photosynthesis.

Later, in the cell cytoplasm, the sugars may be turned into amino acids for proteins, nucleotides for DNA and RNA, and carbohydrates such as starch. This process needs certain minerals: nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, iron and magnesium.

Plant nutrients

Plant nutrition is the study of the chemical elements that are necessary for plant growth.

Macronutrients:

Micronutrients (trace elements) include:

The roots of plants perform two main functions. First, they anchor the plant to the ground. Second, they absorb water and various nutrients dissolved in water from the soil. Plants use the water to make food. The water also provides the plant with support. Plants that lack water become very limp and their stems cannot support their leaves. Plants which specialise in desert areas are called xerophytes or phreatophytes, depending on the type of root growth.

Water is transported from the roots to the rest of the plant through special vessels in the plant. When the water reaches the leaves, some of it evaporates into the air. Many plants need the help of fungi to make their roots work properly. This plant/fungi symbiosis is called mycorrhiza. Rhizobia bacteria in root nodules help some plants get nitrogen.

Flowering plant reproduction

Flowers and pollination

Flowers are the reproductive organ only of flowering plants ( Angiosperms). The petals of a flower are often brightly colored and scented to attract insects and other pollinators. The stamen is the male part of the plant. It is composed of the filament (a stalk) that holds the anther, which produces the pollen. Pollen is needed for plants to produce seeds. The carpel is the female part of the flower. The top part of the carpel contains the stigma. The style is the neck of the carpel. The ovary is the swollen area at the bottom of the carpel. The ovary produces the seeds. The sepal is a leaf that protects a flower as a bud.

The process by which pollen gets transferred from one flower to another flower is called pollination. This transfer can happen in different ways. Insects such as bees are attracted to bright, scented flowers. When bees go into the flower to gather nectar, the spiky pollen sticks to their back legs. The sticky stigma on another flower catches the pollen when the bee lands or flies nearby it.

Some flowers use the wind to carry pollen. Their dangling stamens produce lots of pollen that is light enough to be carried by the wind. Their flowers are usually small and not highly coloured. The stigmas of these flowers are feathery and hang outside the flower to catch the pollen as it falls.

Seed travellers

A plant produces many spores or seeds. Lower plants such as moss and ferns produce spores. The seed plants are the Gymnosperms and Angiosperms. If all the seeds fell to the ground besides the plant, the area might become overcrowded. There might not be enough water and minerals for all the seeds. Seeds usually have some way to get to new places. Some seeds can be dispersed by the wind or by water. Seeds inside juicy fruits are dispersed after being eaten. Sometimes, seeds stick to animals and are dispersed that way.

The question of the earliest plant fossils depends on what is meant by the word "plant".

1. If by plants we mean phototrophs using chlorophyll, then cyanobacteria in stromatolites are the first fossils, 3,450 million years ago (mya) in the Archaean eon. The remarkable precision is possible because the fossils were sandwiched between lava flows that could be precisely dated from embedded zircon crystals.

2. If by plants we mean green plants, Viridiplantae, then the first fossils are green algae. This is probably the majority position amongst professional botanists. There is convincing evidence for the monophyly of charophyte green algae and embryophytes. There are still two choices:

1. Acritarchs (a group of organic-walled microfossils) may be reproductive cysts of green algae. If so, they are present in the Neoproterozoic era, 1000 mya.

2. Otherwise, there is a large increase in planktonic algae around 540 mya in the Cambrian period.

3. If by plants we mean land plants, the first fossils are in the Silurian.

By the Silurian, fossils of whole plants are preserved, including the lycophyte Baragwanathia longifolia. From the Devonian, detailed fossils of rhyniophytes have been found. Early fossils of these ancient plants show the individual cells within the plant tissue. The Devonian period also saw the evolution of the first tree in the fossil record, . This fern-like tree had a trunk with fronds, and produced spores.

The Coal measures are a major source of Palaeozoic plant fossils, with many groups of plants in existence at this time. The spoil heaps of coal mines are the best places to collect; coal itself is the remains of fossilised plants, though structural detail of the plant fossils is rarely visible in coal. In the Fossil Forest at Victoria Park in Glasgow the stumps of Lepidodendron trees are found in their original growth positions.

Related pages

Images for kids

In Spanish: Plantae para niños

# data[].attributes.headline
Urban, Suburban, and Rural Communities Video

# data[].attributes.subject
Urban, Suburban, and Rural Communities Video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Social Studies Unit: Communities - BrainPOP Jr.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Community unit has educational movies about rural, urban, and suburban areas, as well as school communities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Academic Standards

Reading Objective:

Children will explore the differences among the three types of communities and compare and contrast them.

Social Studies Focus:

three kinds of communities

ELA Skills:

key details, vocabulary, compare and contrast

Page 4 Skill:

key details

Vocabulary:

community, rural, suburban, urban

CCSS:

RI.2.1, RI.2.4, RI.2.10, RI.2.3, SL.2.3

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students learn about summer in different kinds of communities and identify which kind of community each riddle describes.

# data[].attributes.body
Here is another great resource to access many non-fiction books.
1. Click the link below. (www.myon.com)
2. School Name: New York Reads
Username: read
password: books
3.Click NON-FICTION.
4.Click on the topic you are interested in reading about.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Type two or more letters to search, use arrow keys to navigate, Enter to select