Santa Claus

Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas or simply "Santa",  lives in a small hill called Korvatuturi in Lapland, Finland. Santa brings presents to the good children on Christmas Eve.

The saint who inspired the legend of Santa Claus was Saint Nicholas, who lived in the 4th Century AD and was famous for giving presents to the poor and for putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him.

Santa enters through the chimney and leaves the presents under the Christmas tree or in the stockings that hang from the mantelpiece.

Have you been good this year?

New Year's Eve

 New Year's Eve is celebrated on 31st December. Some countries celebrate it in summer, and some others in winter. There are different ways to celebrate it, depending on the traditions of the country. 

• Spain: Spanish people eat 12 grapes when the clock strikes 12 at the turn of the year, that is,  we eat a grape for each bell ring (the sound of the bells is very fast so you must eat quickly). A Spanish legend says that if you go outside with an empty suitcase after the clock struck 12,  you will be lucky in your next trips.
• Portugal:  there are the same traditions than in Spain but instead of eating grapes, Portuguese people eat raisins.
• Brazil:  New Year's Eve is celebrated on the beach and people get dressed in white as they believe that if they wear white clothes on New Year's Eve, good luck will stay with them for the rest of the year.  At 12 o'clock people go into the sea with champagne and make a toast to the New Year.

• China: before beginning the celebration of the New Year, they clean their houses to eliminate all the bad luck from the year that they want to  leave behind. Dragons of plastic are used as decorations and firecrackers are thrown to eliminate bad spirits.

Spanish League News

David Villa from F.C. Barcelona has broken his shinbone and he will probably not go to the Eurocup. After last weekend match, Barcelona are level on 37 points with Real Madrid but Barcelona have played one match more. Barcelona played "better" than Real Madrid: Benzema scored in the first minute of the match, but Alexis, Cesc and Xavi scored for Barcelona.

As for the other teams in the Spanish League, Zaragoza, Racing and Sporting are in decline. Levante, Valencia, Sevilla and Málaga are in Europe. Atlético de Madrid and Villareal are doing a terrible league. Valencia and Villarreal are eliminated from the Champions.

December 2011

Brookhouse Literary Awards. Christmas edition

Most of our talented writers have made great effort to write beautiful stories. We have read all kinds of stories; some were too short or too long, a bit too spooky to be christmas time. So far, we know that there was a tie and the jury decided to awards two writers instead of one. The winners will be announced this afeternoon and the stories will be published in the "Brookhouse Times" Christmas edition.

Recycling project

Our English project is about recycling. We explain the process of recycling, that is based on "the three Rs": Recycle, Reduce and Reuse.

Sorting the waste out is essential. There are four bins:

- The blue bin is for paper only,

- The yellow bin is for plastic and packaging only

- The light green bin is for glass only,

- The dark green bin is for organic waste.

If we recycle, our planet will be cleaner. 

What Can We Do To Protect The Environment?

As you know, the environment is changing. Our use and abuse of natural resources is causing global warming (the poles are melting), deforestation,  pollution in the cities, oceans and rivers, etc. 


Then, what can you do to protect the environment?

• Don't waste water: turn off the tap when you're not using it or take a shower instead of a bath. 
• Don't throw litter on the street.
• Recycle your rubbish at home.
• Use the public transport. That would help to reduce the exhaust fumes in cities.
• Don't pollute the oceans. That could kill a lot of fish.

You could do a lot of things more......... like.........Picking up the litter from the streets, turn off the lights every time you leave a room, turn off the TV when you're not watching it, turn off the heating when you are not at home or use less paper to save the rainforests.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

LITTER :  It's the rubbish that you find on the streets, like bottles, papers or tins. If you throw papers in the bin, everything will be cleaner. Don't you agree?

GLOBAL WARMING: It's an increase in the average temperature of the Earth. To reduce global warming we should: use public transport, reduce the amount of pollution in the cities and reduce factory fumes.

Christmas Time!

Christmas is celebrated in many countries around the world every year.

Important dates:

24th December :  it's Christmas Eve. It's the most important family gathering of the year. We usually have dinner with our family and Santa Claus (or Father Christmas) comes to our house at night to leave the presents.
25th December: it's Christmas Day. Children and adults open the presents that Santa has left for us. We have lunch with our family.
31th December: it's New year's eve. We have a New Year's Eve dinner with our family and at midnight we eat 12 grapes to welcome the New Year.

The photo on the right shows a tree and a lot of presents underneath. We can see the stockings full of presents hanging from the mantelpiece.

In Spain, the Three Wise Men bring presents on 6th January to the children that have behaved properly.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2012!

 

Social Networks

Nowadays social networking websites are very important in teenagers' lives
Some of the most important social networks are:

- Facebook: Facebook is the most popular website at the moment, it was launched  in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. Now it has got more than 800 million active users.                                                            

 - Tuenti:
Tuenti is a Spain-based private networking website where you can only enter with an invitation, it is like a Spanish Facebook. It was founded in 2006 by a group of Spanish friends.


- Twitter:
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets". It was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey. It has 300 million users.

80s Music

Throughout history there have been a lot of rock bands. We remember some of them because they were great  or very popular around the world and even if they split up or died,  we remember them. The music that we listen to nowadays would be different without the influence from the 60s or 80s.

The most popular bands of the 80s were:

Cyndi Lauper was born in NY.  She is a very famous singer, her best song is "Girls just wanna have fun"
When she was 15 she looked different: she was the Princess of POP music.

Michael Jackson is the king of  POP. Although he died in 2009, we still remember him and his songs. Thriller, We are the World (he sang this song with other singers of the 80s) Smooth criminal, etc.  are still  listened to nowadays.

HANDBALL

HANDBALL  is a team sport in which two teams of seven players pass a ball to throw it into the goal of the other team. A match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins.

In Spain, handball is very popular, although not as popular as football. The Team Seis do Nadal from Vigo is a bit famous in the area.

The Spain national handball team has won several competitions and medals. 

The KIKE CUP

In the competition there were 5 teams which were: Rockets, Mavericks, All stars,Titans and Terminators.
All the teams were very good but just two could  play the final and those two teams were the Rockets and the All stars. The match was divided into two parts of 30 minutes in the first part the rockets scored one goal, but in the second part the rockets scored one goal more and the all stars scored one goal too.

      THE GOALS

1st goal: Mario Cabado (rockets)

2nd goal: Mario Cabado(rockets)

3rd goal:jesus (all stars)             

                                                                          THE PLAYERS


                 ROCKETS                                                                   ALL STARS



GOAL KEEPER:Iñaki Carrera Bueno            GOAL KEEPER: Pablo Losada
DEFENDERS:Javier Campelo                        DEFENDERS:Fran Gonzalez,Jesus
ATTACKERS:Mario , Alex,jesus                    ATTACKERS:Fran and Pedro
CENTRE:Manuel Abelardo                           CENTRE:Ansur,Jesus
 EXTRAS:Javi Vazquez                                    EXTRAS: Marc Baldor

                                       

 CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ROCKETS!  

We also had our tireless cheer leaders!

  By guest writers from Pontevedra school: Iñaki Carrera and Ignacio Álvarez