Ouyang Xiu lost his father at the age of 4 and his family was poor. He lives on the money earned by his mother Zheng from needlework, and even eating is a problem. The family can't afford to buy him paper and pens. Ouyang Xiu was envious when he saw the children next door carrying schoolbags to school in the street, and begged his mother to let him go to school.

After listening to the child, Zheng was both happy and sad. I am glad that the child has such a strong desire to learn, but I am worried that he is really unable to meet the reasonable requirements of the child. One day, she finally came up with an idea

Zheng spread a layer of fine sand on the flat ground in front of the house and broke a pole. He called the child to his side and said, "You can't use sand as paper and a pole as a pen, no matter how many words you write or how many pictures you draw." Xiao Ouyang Xiu squatted happily on the edge of this layer of sand and kept drawing on it with a chisel. After writing for a while, he wiped off the sand and wrote again. In this way, under the guidance of his mother, Xiao Ouyang Xiu learned a lot of words and learned to write and compose poems.