Learn how to use the Christmas present! Make sure this week you have a go with the e-book reader. Choose a story you've not read before. Give me your opinions on your different reading experiences: book and screen.

Read some stories courtesy of The Phrase Finder. Try finding your favourite saying, or learn some new ones. I enjoyed Warts and all.

Learn two dozen new words. Words will always come in handy.

Try amenable, malleable, tractable, docile. I wish.

Type them into the search box at wordsmyth and see what you get.

This week you could also poke about Fact Monster and tell me if it's any use.

Short stories. I am a fan, 100%. The writing must be concise, the plot smartly delivered, the characters breathing in a trice.

Maybe I have a short attention span. Or not much time. Bah. Let us make a library visit. Those short stories will be creeping about the book shelves.

I'm not making it up when I mutter, I can't remember how to spell that.

Watch these adults basically say the same thing... we all use tricks to help us spell words that we find difficult.

I still use the one collar method, but for me it's two socks.

Look at the words you ask me to spell this week, and make up a rhyme, visual clue, or little trick to help you remember them for next time.

Can you figure out a spelling rhyme for the ight in bright fight might light flight.

Is anyone learning a new word a day from the dictionary yet?

Liverpool caught our eye this week, mostly because for a split second we were trying to understand a 1950s photograph of the Mersey as the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong.

So let's read an extract from Helen Forrester's Twopence to Cross the Mersey, set in the 1930s.

This piece is about the theft of milk, and the response of a young policeman to the incident.

Your responses, please.

Then check out what Helen Forrester books are in the library.

Look and listen to Liverpool.

Think about how Liverpool and Hong Kong are really not so very far apart! And let's put it on the list of must-visit places in the UK.

Please note, my dear children, I am absolutely terrified about going there. No-one can say anything bad about the place (unless you live there). And you certainly can't say it looks like the last tribal land of England. Except Cornwall. That looks a bit tribal too. And Norfolk. Maybe Somerset. Newcastle? Ahem. Discuss.

How many different ideas can one word hold?!

Try looking at the word tack.

Choose a word that has multiple definitions, or that can be used in many ways. Try using it in as many different sentences so that it carries many different ideas.

That should keep you busy for the next 70 years or so.


(Meanwhile, because I haven't got the poetry book shelves with me, would you all mind if I asked you to be quiet now, so I can listen to some spoken poetry? You can listen if you want.)

This week Shark asked about etymology. Go on a hunt through dictionaries, libraries, the internet, other people's brains, and see if you can find an etymology for any words you like the sound of, or any of these lovely and useful words:

education, tournament, feisty, home, field, daffodil, autumn, electricity, objection, ordinary.

The BBC writes a history of the word disgust. What's your thinking about this word?

Here's an online place to help you spin some stories. And here's a phrase dictionary.

In other word wanderings, I came across two online word game areas this week.

Here and here.

I haven't tried them all; some were mildly amusing and some were quite annoying. Try some. If you can't find any word games you like, invent your own.

This week, let's talk about types of text, or the different ways in which subjects can be represented.

For example, look at the place you're sitting. (Front room? Bedroom? Roof?)

How many different ways have you encountered in books and theatre which represents such a physical space?

Maybe you will have found a room in a poem or narrative story, in a newspaper article or on a stage, on factual information panels, in a designer's notebook, as architectural drawings, in a historical analysis, as a data sheet on an archaeological dig, and so on.

Can we try and collect examples? I'll put them here over time.

Choose a subject for yourself. (A horse? Fish? Cat?) How many different ways, or types of text, could represent your subject? Let's talk about it, and how you could write up or show your ideas.

Set your own assignment this week. Show me what you've done.

Or you could try writing some poetry of objects. What would the sofa say if it could talk?

This week I'll pick some Everyday edits. You're welcome to poke around that site to see what you can find.

Who wants a subscription to Newsademic?

Library week!

Tell me which new authors you're trying out.

Have you tried a different genre to the one you normally choose?

Write a short story, drawing on one or more of the following problems:

There must be a letter delivered in time.
A telephone must be answered if a life is to be saved.
A key must be inserted into a padlock.
Shelter must be built.
An object must be found.

Start anywhere you wish ... at a particular location, with the thoughts of a character, by describing what it is like to touch an object. Then see where your beginning takes you.

Try the shuffle-a-letter word puzzles. Can you think up some of your own?

Play Scrabble with me.

Roger McGough is a poet who can write with a mischievous tone.

Listen to him read one of his poems here.

Can you describe what the author has done with the idea of the 'Cats Protection League'?

Go on a scavenger hunt and find us some animal poems to share.

Watch this video about the origins of English.

Your father is hopping mad. What doesn't he like about it?

Tell him your opinions.

Write a short story of more than five sentences.

Include any of these words: telephone, chase, time, scream, heard, cloud, water.

Make sure each sentence has the correct punctuation.