Happy New Year!

Let's go to London... for the New Year celebrations!

London celebrated the New Year 2014 with one of the world’s most dazzling firework displays ever.

The 'London Eye' ferris wheel was the focus for much of the pyrotechnics, which lit up the entire capital.  

Big Ben was illuminated against the night sky

in one of the most spectacular fireworks displays ever.

 

Watch the video!

“Hell is paved with good intentions.”
Samuel Johnson

"New Year’s Day:  Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."
Mark Twain

"Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account."
Oscar Wilde

"For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning." 
TS Eliot

 What about you? Do you think it's important to start the new year with some good intentions?

What are your resolutions for the new year?

Some advice and some wish for you...

 

Now it's up to you!

"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens

from a PowerPoint presentation by Roberta Martino

 

 

 

 

We watched "A Christmas Carol" in our classroom

Some interesting facts about 
"A Christmas Carol":
http://www.charlesdickensinfo.com/christmas-carol/trivia/ 


 
QUIZ!!
http://www.charlesdickensinfo.com/games/christmas-carol-quiz/ 

The following are some quotations from "A Christmas Carol".

Can you tell me who and when pronounces these words?

“I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” 

 “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!” 

 “They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.” 

 “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!” 

"Business!" he cried, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” 

 “Bah," he said, "Humbug.” 

 “And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that [Christmas] has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” 

 “If they would rather die, . . . they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” 

 “God bless us, every one!” 

 “Come in, -- come in! and know me better, man! Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before!” 

 “Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets.” 

 “Are there no prisons?” 

“I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”  

If you need more information here is a list of some Charles Dickens websites:
http://www.shmoop.com/charles-dickens/websites.html

These are parts of a story board of "A Christmas Carol" by some 11-years-old students