HOW TO KNOW WHAT YOUR CAT IS TELLING YOU
HOW TO CLOUD SPOT
HOW TO FLY A KITE
HOW TO DO (ALMOST) EVERYTHING
HOW TO TIE KNOTS
HOW TO RECOGNISE BIRDSONG HOW TO WRITE A THANKYOU NOTE HOW TO MEND A HOLE HOW TO COOK HOW TO READ A MAP
100 SKILLS FOR CURIOUS KIDS
HOW TO IDENTIFY THE PHASES OF THE MOON HOW TO JUGGLE
How to make slime, escape a maze, write a secret message on a piece of toast and more…
HOW TO WRITE AN ALGORITHM
WRITTEN BY BECKY BAINES
ILLUSTRATED BY LAURIE AVON
HOW TO...
EXPERT CONSULTANTS
DO THE M ONWALK
Megan Pugh Author of America Dancing: From the Cakewalk to the Moonwalk, Hannah Redfearn Dance Practitioner
If you’ve ever wanted to impress the crowd with a move so cool it’s out of this world, then look no further than the Moonwalk. With practice, it’s fairly simple to master, so you don’t need to be a great dancer to pull it off. Think of it less as dancing and more as walking backwards – with style! You might know of this smooth move from pop legend Michael Jackson, who first performed it to his hit song ‘Billie Jean’, in 1983. But he
YOU WILL NEED Socks
Smooth surface
Bit of space (your act will look a lot less slick if you walk backwards into a chair)
STEP 1: PUT ON YOUR SOCKS AND SELECT YOUR SURFACE
You want as little resistance between your feet and the floor as possible, so choose socks without grips and a smooth surface.
didn’t invent it. From as early as the 1920s, African-American performers – including jazz singer Cab Calloway, stage performer Johnny Hudgins and tap dancer Bill Bailey – were performing their own versions of the ‘backslide’, as it was then known. Although he is most commonly associated with the move today, Jackson likely learned it from dancers on the TV music show Soul Train in the 1970s.
It’s not essential to wear mismatched socks when performing the Moonwalk. It just helps to explain the moves (see next page).
STEP 2: POSITION YOUR FEET
Standing with your feet about 10 centimetres apart, slide your left foot in front of your right. This is your starting position.
STEP 3: MOVE!
Lift your right heel and bend your right knee, so you are standing on your right toes.
NOW REPEAT!
Smoothly slide your left foot straight back, so it passes your right foot and takes the back position. Keep your left foot flat on the floor as it slides, and keep your left leg straight as you slide it back – no bending at the knee!
But this time, each foot will be doing the opposite role.
Make sure your weight is on the ball of your left foot.
Smoothly slide your right foot straight back, so it passes your left foot and takes the back position.
Lift your left heel up and bend your left knee, while placing your right heel flat on the ground.
Lift your right heel up, while placing your left heel down.
RIGHT FOOT LEFT FOOT
STEP 4: PICK UP THE SPEED
Believe it or not, you are Moonwalking already! It just may not look like it quite yet. That’s because this dance is all about smoothness –connecting one movement to the next in a fluid fashion. Once you get comfortable with the steps, pick up the speed a little bit. Try to connect one move directly into the next.
STEP 5: HANDS - OFF!
You may be wondering what to do with your hands. In this case, nothing! When Michael Jackson performed the Moonwalk, he kept his hands by his sides in his pockets, or simply touched his hat.
Want to juggle at the same time?
Turn to page 193 to learn how!
A Curious Note...
If you’ve ever played a video game without looking at the controller, or practised the piano without looking at the keys, you’ll have mastered muscle memory. This brilliant brain phenomenon explains how you are able to reproduce movements you’ve made a hundred times before without thinking about them. Your brain’s memory log stores the actions and sequences to replicate them without instruction. The same thing goes for dances and sports. Once you’ve locked them in, you can perform them with ease.
While doing the Moonwalk, your toes should never lose contact with the floor.
Option 2: The Trémaux Method
This method, named after its inventor, French author Charles Pierre Trémaux, involves eliminating all other options. You need chalk, string or another marker.
How it works: Enter the maze. At every junction, choose a path at random. Mark the path you’ve chosen (with chalk or string) to show you’ve been that way. Keep going until you reach a dead end. Then, turn around and go back to the start, following the paths you’ve already marked. Every time you reach a marked path, add a second mark, to show you’ve walked that path twice. When you get back to the start, try again. Each time you reach a junction, take either an unmarked path or a path marked once.
The important rule is to never walk a path more than twice – once forwards and once back. Eventually, you will find your way to the end.
Why it works: You are eliminating every dead end and ensuring you don’t repeat your mistakes so you don’t get stuck in a cycle.
Does it always work? Yes! It takes much longer but it never misses.
ESCAPE A MAZE
Peter Rowlett Mathematics Teacher, Writer and Communicator
Warning: there are spoilers ahead! If you love the thrill of finding yourself lost in a maze, then skip this section, because – newsflash! – there are two guaranteed ways to get out.
Yes, you can rely on luck or instinct – and sometimes you’ll stumble upon the exit. But here, you’ll learn two reliable methods. They are called search algorithms, because you explore every possible route until you find the right one (to learn more about algorithms, go to page 143). You may not follow the fastest route, but you will find your way out.
(because you are) but be patient!
Does it always work? No. For simple mazes (where all the walls are connected) this trick will almost always work. But for intricate mazes with built-in bridges and traps, you’ll have to move on to the second method.
Slime moulds can solve mazes! Japanese scientist Toshiyuki Nakagaki made a plastic maze and put a piece of food at either end. He then plopped blobs of slime mould throughout the maze. These blobs started to join together to fill the maze and a few hours later the mould had shrunk away from the maze’s dead ends and organised itself into the shortest path between the two bits of food at the start and the end of the maze. Pretty impressive for an organism that doesn’t have a brain...
YANCHENG DAFENG DREAM MAZE, YANCHENG, JIANGSU, CHINA
DOLE PINEAPPLE MAZE, WAHIAWA, HAWAII, USA
PARMA, ITALY
MAKE SLIME
It’s squishy… it’s stretchy… it’s sticky… it’s sublime… it’s slime! What makes this gooey gloop so compelling? Well, for starters, it’s fascinating. It’s not quite a solid, but it’s not a liquid either. So what exactly is it? Slime is a polymer, just like its key ingredient, glue. A polymer is made up of chains of molecules. In glue, the chains are long and straight, meaning they slip and slide around easily. To transform glue into slime, you need one other key ingredient: borax. Borax contains borate ions, which, when added to glue, link those long chains together, thickening the glue into sticky, stretchy slime! Contact-lens solution contains
borax, which is why it’s an important ingredient if you want to make your own slime. (Some solutions contain boric acid, which works in a similar way.) The bicarbonate of soda helps to firm up your slime mixture. But why do we love slime so much? It’s because different textures stimulate our senses and help us to feel calm and even happy. They activate parts of our brain that release feel-good hormones that put us right in the chill zone. So, playing with the gloopy texture of slime really puts us in a good mood! To enjoy it safely, be careful around your eyes, mouth and any cuts, and always wash your hands afterwards.
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EXPERTISE.
With this book by their side, every curious child will gain a dazzling range of skills for real-life adventures, including: how to read a map; how to bake a cake; how to star-spot (without a telescope); how to solve a Rubik’s cube; how to do amagic trick; how to use Morse code; how to find your way out of a maze; how to give a compliment and much more! Every skill comes with the seal of approval from top experts, and their stellar tips are threaded throughout the book, too. Lavishly illustrated with step-by-step diagrams, exuberant illustrations and stunning photography, this book offers the skills every child needs to make the most out of every day.
This beautiful hardback makes a great gift that the whole family across the generations can enjoy together as they (re)learn 100 skills.
Features over fifty expert consultants, for example: an aircraft designer gives advice on making paper aeroplanes, a structural engineer gives advice on building a den, and a computer scientist gives advice on writing an algorithm.
ORDERS
The perfect book to help kids engage with the real world (and each other!), in a time of weariness with screens.
This book is a visual feast, and includes 500 illustrations, step-by-step diagrams, infographics and photographs.
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Pub date: 03/09/2026 • Price: £25.00 • Size: 280 x 210 mm Format: Hardback • Extent: 320 pages • Age: 8+ years • ISBN: 9781804661741
ISBN 978-1-80466-174-1
9 781804 661741