Our Learning Blog

At the start of this term everyone was handed out books to read, and my book was Tom’s Midnight Garden. I thought that this book was quite good because the author used excellent language, I think the story is set out very well because: everything happens in chronological order, the author often leaves things on cliff hangers which just makes me want to read on more, what happens in the book is very clever because everything adds up at the end. Like when Tom finds out that everything that happens in the garden is because Mrs Bartholomew (later found out to be Hatty) dreams of the garden and what she dreams of happens to Tom.

Although what I do not like about this book is that it is very slow moving, I say that because it goes into every tiny detail about every single thing that happens, one of the times this happens is when Tom is reading about Victorian clothing and it goes into detail about the headings and all the sub headings and it even goes into detail about all the clothes that Tom is not searching for such as men’s clothes even though he is looking for the kind of clothes that Hatty wears.

Overall I think that this is a good and it is very satisfying when you have finished it. Despite that I would recommend this to older readers who will not get bored with it and will read on.

Holes,

Louis Sachar,

Evaluating.

This book is a great book because the author has used lots of different Punctuation and describing words to write the book such as: stooped, huge, “, -, ?,., ; and !  The book is quiet funny as the author has used most of the funny parts at the end of sentences when people have finished talking.

 

I would say that the genre of this book is comedy because a lot of people characters were just digging lots of holes.  Stanley and Hector/Zero the two main characters.  Stanley and Zero saw this thing on the mountain and they thought it was a big thumb so they left camp to climb the big mountain then they found out that it was a big thumb.

One of the funny parts in the book is” Stanley had seen KB is his mothers bathroom and he also saw it in the wardens cabin. It was  halve of a lip stick tube.”  Stanley meets these new people at Camp Green Lake who have very weird names like; Zero, Armpit, Zigzag, Squid, X-Ray and Magnet. Overall I would rate this book 5/5.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This term I have been reading a book called Mr Stink. It was a brilliant book. The book was partially humorous and partially emotional. Chloe who is a 12 year old girl and Mr Stink who is a 60 year old man I felt as if their bond grew through out the story. My favorite part  is when Mr Stink gets invited on to a show called question time and he embarrasses himself (in a hilarious way) and embarrasses mother who is Chloe’s mother. Overall I really like this book and I like the way the authors styled it and I like the illustrations that the illustrator made.

Holes by Louis Sachar is a book based about unfair punishments. A boy called Stanley Yelnats is framed for stealing a pair of sneakers he did not steal. He got sent to camp green lake where he gets up to trouble.  I enjoyed very much because of the different types of characters from innocent Stanley Yelnats to the aggressive Warden.

The way the author wrote it it was like two different sides of the book; There was the joking funny sneaky boys then there was the dark side of the Warden and Mr Sir. A easy way to show this is when the boys stole a sack of seeds and Stanley took the blame. Mr Sir got angry and took him to the Warden. The Warden wears venomous nail polish; it wasn’t dry and she scratched Mr Sirs face for wasting her time.

The genre of this book I feel is adventure because Stanley and his freind Zero escape from Camp Green Lake. They have to climb to the top of a mountain. Stanley had to carry Zero to the top. The reason why they climbed to the top is because they believed there was water source at the top. I feel like it is also about freindships, because Stanley has to make freinds with the boys and they all have nicknames: Caveman-Stanley Yelnats, Zero-Hector Zeroni, Xray, Magnet, Twitch, Zigzag, Armpit and Squid they even called Mr Pendanski Mom.

Louis Sachar wrote very weirdly because there was a poem that he repeated over and over in the book.

“If only if only the woodpecker sighs,

The bark on the trees is as soft as the skies.

While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,

Crying to the moo-00-oon,

If only if only.”

But he changes the poem each time. He can make the book really tense. Like when the author made Stanley and Hector starving in the desert.

 

Holes which is written by Louis Sachar is about a boy getting punished for “stealing the shoes” of Clyde Livingston. Clyde is a famous basketball player. The boy in this book is called Stanley and he gets sent to Green Camp lake where he had to dig lots of holes. At the camp Stanley meets other people and starts to bond with one in particular, Zero. Zero is a boy who isn’t very smart and Stanley has to teach him to read and write. Suddenly zero tries a get away and everyone is camp tries to find him. No luck, But Stanley didn’t stop and he got his reward. He found him under a boat keeping himself alive with a gloopy juice. Stanley manages to persuade him back to camp and in no time they were back at home partying with Clyde Livingston.

The Author is trying to get a message across in this book. This message is that punishments can get as bad as this         (digging holes all the time). He has got very good description for example his “no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-Grandfather.” He also has lots of characters in the book ( Stanley, Squid, Clyde Livingston…) which needs to have good description. He has put two stories into one book because of when he tells the story of his Grandfather. I would say this is an adventure book because of the adventure Stanley goes on and all through the book where Stanley goes through different stages.

Personally I liked the book and I would rate it 4 1/2  out of 5. I liked this book because there was lots of description and there was never nothing interesting going on. So for example Stanley is always digging and finding something interesting. At the end of the book it is a surprise because He ends up sitting next to the person that he got accused of stealing his shoes. I would read this book again.

Tom’s Midnight Garden is a book I have read by Philippa Pearce. It was published in 1958 so the language in it is different from what we would see today. The genre is adventure, as Tom goes on an adventure around the garden. It is about a boy named Tom who has to go to his aunt and uncle’s house to stay temporarily because his brother, Peter, has measles.

When Tom first goes to his aunt and uncle’s, he was bored, but curious because there was a grandfather clock with a “13th hour.” He missed his brother and he couldn’t get to sleep, and when he saw the 13th hour on the clock, he sneaked out to the garden.

In the garden, he met a girl named Hatty, who ends up being one of the main protagonists in the story. Hatty says she is a princess, even though she is not, however that isn’t important the story. Time moves faster in the garden, so he can stay in there for a long time, even though it’s just an hour.

He ends up going to the garden every night, and something completely new happens every night. He meets someone called Abel, who is extremely protective over Hatty. Since everything moves faster in the garden, some big and important things an happen very quickly. A fir-tree that previously had an effect of the story came down, leaving it to never be mentioned again.

The book is quite a serious book, and doesn’t have much humor, but a funny bit in the book is when Tom and Hatty are fighting over which one of them might be a ghost.

At the end of the book, Tom and Hatty go skating down Ely, in one of the frostiest winters Ely had ever had. It didn’t take long to become winter, as it started of in summer, but became winter in only a couple of months.

A interesting quote from the book is: “Nothing stands still, except in our memory.”

In conclusion, I would rate the book 4/5, as it is a good and exciting book, but it can get boring sometimes.

On the 25th of September P6/7’s from Islay and Jura went to Oban for Stramash. Stramash is lots of exiting outdoor activities made for experience and making friends. First we got on the ferry to Kennacraig then it was a long bus journey to Oban. That was when we got to meet the instructors and get told our groups and rooms. Everyday we got told our timetable and on the first day I had cannoeing but the bus was late! The next day sounded fun anyway.

I got up out of bed and was told I had Castle adventure. Once we got there everyone had to say about the sounds around you and how we felt. My group made a very fun mud slide which caused one tragedy later on in the week. Soon after lunch my group had gorge walk. Gorge walk was really cold last year so I wasn’t looking forward to it. First we scrambled into our wetsuits then headed to the gorge. Suprisingly we got to see a red squirell. We also got to float down on our backs. I WAS ABSOLUTLEY FREEZING!

On the 2nd and last full day I awoke very tired. After breakfast my group had climbing and absailing. It came to my mind that it was going to be fun. We had to have a harness and a helmet to keep us safe. Once we got there we climbed on rock then two others. For me the last one was the hardest.

Later just before lunch we got told we were doing coasteering with Adam, so once again we had to clamber into our wetsuits and bouyancy aids. I knew coasteering would be fun because I did it last year. Coasteering was all about going around the coast climbing and then swim a bit.  Last year we got to jump of a rock and I didn’t do it but this year I was determined to jump.

That night the teachers decided to take us swimming, we also went last year but it wasn’t as fun as this year. The swirly flume was amazing and I got stuck in the middle of it but thankfully I managed to get out. Noon came and because it was the last night we had a fire and lots of games at the beach.

Sadly Stramash had to come to an end.  We only had time on the last day to do one activity which was bush craft with Rich. We did bush craft in a woods and got to make a fire. WE ALSO GOT TO TOAST MARSHMALLOWS! After that we had to say goodbye and start heading back to Islay.

Overall Stramash was really fun and I would definitly go back to Oban. My favourite activity was coasteering because you got to jump of a rock.

by Jack

Bush Craft at Stramash

On Tuesday the 25th September p6/7 from the Islay and Jura schools went on an outward-bound trip: Stramash.

One of the activities that we done was bush craft, I really enjoyed that. Excitedly I walked up the path towards the woods with my group and at last we arrived. Our instructor, (Rich) told us to go and find somewhere comfy to sit and listen to everything around us. When we came back down we listed everything we heard; cars, wind, leaves etc.

Later on Rich showed us a feather stick he made because he wanted us too have a go and try making one. All of us were told about the triangle of death, the triangle of death is in between your legs where your arteries are, we were told TO NEVER! cut in-between your legs because if your knife slips out of your hand it could hit your arteries and that could kill you. So that is why you have too always cut at the side of you and away from your body. Soon enough Rich handed out knifes to each one of us, we were all pretty psyched to get too use a real knife by ourselves. When I had a go at making my own feather stick it took me quite a while to get the knack of it but when I did I was all right at it.

Now it was time to make a fire. My partner for making the fire was Ciaran, our fire was the first to get going and I think that surprised both of us. Too make the fire we had too collect sticks, (number ones) and (number twos) were the kind of sticks we had to collect, number ones are small thin twigs and number twos are thicker and a bit bigger. Too test if the twigs were dry on the inside we would snap them and if they made a good noise then we were able to use them.

Finally we were ready to create our fire. Ciaran lit the fire and carefully I laid the number ones on top of it and the number twos width ways, we both also used our feather sticks. Whenever our fire started going out we would use the mats we sat on and blow on the fire with it and me and Ciaran would start shouting “LIFE SUPPORT” whenever our fire died down a bit. As well as making a great fire everyone got marshmallows and got to toast them over the fire and me and Ciaran got one more each than everyone. I felt pretty sneaky about that…

By now it was the end of our bush craft session and I would be able to tell my friends all about my great time building fires and making a fire stick.

By Holly