Some of us visited Lux Expo!

Lux Expo is an exhibition centre where they have lots of different exhibitions during the year. 

Two of us wrote about it in our English class.  We practised the past tense in English.

At the weekend I went to Lux Expo.  There were snakes, spiders, alligators, baby and giant turtles, albino snakes, pictures of a friendly snake and a snake with two heads.  I saw it all.  It was very exciting but there were almost no lights because of the animals.  At the end, I held a 3 metre long tiger python snake.  It was very heavy.

By T

When I went to Lux Expo, I saw the Dog Expo. There were so many dogs!  You could see big or small dogs.  It was super!!  I love dogs.  My favourite dogs are golden retrievers.  Some of the dogs did tricks but we only watched them.  We didn’t hold any of them.

By Percy

Stormbreaker: The Film

Our class watched a film called ‘Stormbreaker’.  This is what we thought of the film.  We practised writing the past tense in English and we used lots of adjectives to describe the film.

Did you like the film?

Everyone liked the film a lot.  We thought it was funny and exciting.  It was full of drama and action.  We thought it was interesting.  It was an adventure movie and there was a lot of danger.

Which parts of the film did you like best?

Everyone liked different parts of the film best.  Some of us just liked the whole film.

Jack - the Housekeeper

‘My favourite part of the film was when Jack (the housekeeper) fought with the blond woman who worked for Mr Sayle’ wrote Nancy.  ‘My favourite part of the film was when Sabine (Alex’s girlfriend) kicked the security guard!’ wrote Flower.

B liked the part when Alex’s Uncle was shot by Yassen Gregorovich who was hanging upside down from a plane at the time.

Ian Rider - Alex's Uncle

Several of us liked the bit where Yassen Gregorovich shot Darrius Sayle and saved Alex’s life.

M liked it when the rather fat Prime Minister called Darrius Sayle by his nickname Darrius Smell!

Who was your favourite character in the film?

Most of us liked Alex the best because he was brave, young, strong and very cool.  Wendy liked Mr Blunt best, the head of MI6, because he was funny.

Catstein Junior liked Alex, his Uncle and Yassen Gregorovich best and Nancy liked Jack best, because she was smart, she could fight really well and she was clever.

Editor’s Comment

I like the way that Anthony Horowitz doesn’t make his characters all good or all bad.

This is particularly true of Yassen Gregorovich.  Yassen is paid to kill Alex’s Uncle but saves Alex’s life because he likes him.  He sees a reflection of his younger self in Alex.  He also wants to set Alex free from the world of spying, where you have to kill or be killed to survive.  

Book Reviews

Review of the novel 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' by Jeff Kinney

by Al

I liked the book because the pictures made it easy to read. 

My favourite part of the novel was when the wimpy kid and his best friend Rowley cut the grass for an old woman.  They wanted to have some money for doing jobs.  She did not pay them because they cut the grass and the flowers, and almost everything in the garden, with a lawnmower.  It was very funny.

My favourite character was definitely the wimpy kid.

Review of the novel 'Stormbreaker'

by Y

I liked it very much.  I liked it when Alex went to M16.  The book is so good.  It was really interesting.  Sometimes it was funny and sometimes Alex was in a lot of danger.  Anthony Horowitz wrote many books about Alex Rider.  I am now reading Point Blank.

My favourite part of the book was when Alex hung on to the helicopter and when he played on his Nintendo DS in the car.  I liked it when his Uncle was shot and the man hung upside down from a helicopter to shoot him.  I also liked it when Alex fought with Darrius Sayle.

My favourite character was Alex.  He is cool, fast, intelligent, and a real secret agent.

Stormbreaker and Class Library News

Stormbreaker

English Fiction (an invented story)

Stormbreaker is a best-selling novel by Anthony Horowitz.  It’s the first of several novels in a series about teenage spy, ‘Alex Rider’. 

Over the last couple of weeks we watched the film of the novel in English.  We also studied comparative adjectives (such as short – shorter) and the present continuous.  Year 4 are writing reviews of the film.

These are employees of the British Secret Service: calculating and ruthless.  They are willing to blackmail a fourteen year old boy into working for them.  They risk Alex's life to get what they want...are they as nasty as the evil genius, Mr Darrius, or is he nastier?

Who is Alex?

Played by Alex Pettyfer, Alex Rider is an orphan.  He lived with his Uncle and a housekeeper before his Uncle was killed.  He’s an expert in martial arts, who can abseil, parachute and scuba dive.  He was trained by his Uncle.  He also speaks several languages – English, French, German and Japanese.  

He agrees to work for MI6 so that his Uncle’s housekeeper is given a permanent visa to stay in the UK.  The Secret Service will send her to prison if he doesn’t become a spy because she is staying in the UK illegally.

What is ‘Stormbreaker’?

Stormbreaker is an advanced computer.  Multi-millionaire Darrius Sayle is giving them, free of charge, to all schools.

The British Secret Service does not trust Mr Sayle.  They do not trust him with reason.  Their agent, sent to find out why Mr Sayle wants to give Stormbreaker away, is Alex’s Uncle. He is killed because he found out too much. The Secret Service recruits Alex and sends him on training with the army’s special forces.  Then he goes undercover at Darrius’ factory in Cornwall to find out what his Uncle knew…

Why is Mr Sayle not a nice person?

Darrius Sayle was bullied at school.  The boy who bullied him is now the Prime Minister of the UK.  He called Darrius Sayle, Darrius ‘Smell’.  Now Mr Sayle wants to get his revenge on the world and especially on the Prime Minister. It is the Prime Minister (played by actor Robbie Coltrane) who will press the button that activates the Stormbreaker.  This will also release a deadly virus that kills many people if Mr Sayle’s plan works.

In a gripping story, packed with action, Alex ends up parachuting into London to save the world from a deadly virus, a type of smallpox....will he make it in time?

Class Library News

Stormbreaker and other books in the Alex Rider series are now available in the class library.

The Jeff Kinney 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' novels are also available in our class library.

Find out more about these authors and novels on these websites:

http://www.alexrider.com/

http://www.wimpykid.com/

Classic Novels retold:

Still available are the Usborne series of books which are written in simple English.  These include classic novels and plays, some by Shakespeare, such as 'Macbeth' and 'Romeo and Juliet', adapted for children.

AT