Monthly Archives: December 2011

Holidays

SANTA TRACKING

Don’t forget to look out for Santa on Christmas Eve (NORAD will let you follow him on Google Earth) so you can make sure you’ve got your stocking hung up in time…

Have a Happy Christmas and an enjoyable holiday, and don’t forget to come back to school on Monday the 9th of January 2012, refreshed and ready for the new term.

Thursday

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS

The new Sherlock Holmes film –  A Game of Shadows – is based on the Arthur Conan Doyle  story The Final Problem, although it is obviously quite loosely based on the story! All the Sherlock Holmes stories are exciting reads, and we have most of them in the Library, ask the librarian if you are interested.

 

Wednesday

1C2 – READING MISS STIRLING’S HEIGHT

This week 1C2 added another 211mm to their total, making it 1297mm worth of books they have read so far. With only 373mm to go, I expect they will have reached their target by the time they come back after the holidays. This week students read Pink Chameleon, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Subtle Knife, New Moon, Haunting Violet, Blue, and two people read Eclipse.

Tuesday

FLIP – REVIEW BY RB

Alex wakes up one morning to find that he is not himself. He is in fact someone else, someone called Philip. He looks completely different, his family is not his own, his friends are not friends he would have chosen and he has lost six months of his life. Alex discovers from a boy named Rob that he is not alone – he is a PE or psychic evacuee, but he still has no choice about living Philip’s life, and no way back to his own.

Flip is a tense thriller, with an atmosphere which builds throughout the book as Alex becomes more and more panicked about the possibility of being trapped as Philip for the rest of his life.

Monday

 

 

 

The Daily What is a daily on-line newspaper for Scottish Schools. Every day there is a new story, which is particularly relevant to Scotland – for instance, last week the headlines were about Pandas (again), the two Dundee teenagers who were jailed for trying to incite a riot on Facebook, Emeli Sande winning the critics choice award at the 2012 Brit Awards and the world’s first interactive stained glass window in Glasgow.

It’s a useful site if you have to read a newspaper article for English or Modern Studies, and it is updated every week day.

Friday

CHARLIE HIGSON

Charlie Higson is the author of the one of the scariest series of teen books I’ve read – about an alternative future where all the adults have turned into zombies. On his website for The Enemy, The Dead and The Fear, you can zombie yourself or look at a gallery of zombie pictures. It’s a good place to check for updates on his latest books or to find out about him and the other books he writes.

To get an idea of how terrifying Higson can be – have a look at the Scared Kid video.

 

 

 

 

Thursday

GLOW

Particularly at this time of year when there is a higher chance of bad weather, it is important that everyone knows their Glow login and password. If the school has to close, your teachers will put work on Glow for you – and claiming that you have forgotten your password will not be considered an excuse! It is also a good way of sending files between school and home without having to use a memory stick. If you don’t know or have forgotten any of your Glow details you can have your password reset in the Library – any of your teachers should be able to do this for you as well.

Wednesday

1C2 – READING MISS STIRLING’S HEIGHT

Another steady week of reading from 1c2 has added 251 mm to their total, which means that they now have 1086 mm in total and have broken the one meter mark. They have read lots of different books (the full list is still in the sidebar) although there are some obvious favourites – eight people have read one of the Twilight books and six have read a Wimpy Kid book.

Tuesday

THE UNFORGOTTEN COAT – REVIEW BY CM

When Chingis and Nergui from Mongolia arrive at Julie’s school, she is fascinated by how different they are. She becomes their ‘good guide’ and their friend, showing them around her world inside and outside school. Chingis says that a demon is following them, so they must confuse and mislead it, and although she knows demons don’t exist, Julie guides them through this too…

The Unforgotten Coat is written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, who wrote Millions and Cosmic and it is just as laugh-out-loud funny as his other books. There is a serious message however, to provide a sting in the tail.

Monday

ANOTHER ADVENT CALENDAR

If you click on the Guardian logo, it will take you to their children’s books advent calendar. You can watch Simon’s cat destroy a Christmas tree; learn how to draw a penguin (first borrow your penguin); do a Harry Potter quiz; listen to Michael Morpurgo talk about War Horse – and that’s only four of the doors. There are freebies to win and a really good clip from My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece read by David Tennant. Go ahead, open some doors.