Monday 8 December 2014

Summer Reading at your community library!







Here is something local for you to check out South Taranaki District Council Libraries (Hawera, Opunake, Kaponga, Manaia, Patea. Waverley and Eltham Libraries)  have summer reading programmes for 5-12 years and 12+. Check out the link to get more information:




Encouraging a love of books and reading is one of the most important things you can do to help develop your child’s literacy skills. You can help with this by enrolling your child in the South Taranaki District Libraries Summer Reading Programme for younger children and iRead Programme for Tweens. Participants, should be aged between 5-12 years old to register – they  do not need to be reading by themselves to participate in the programme.

Children enrolled in the six week summer reading programme:

·         receive a colourful folder to record the library books they have read
·         come into the library to share their library books with a staff member (report-in) 
·         receive a small gift at each report-in 
·         may attend activities and storytellers throughout the programme 
·         complete the programme by reporting-in 3+ times 
·         can attend a finale celebration where they will receive a certificate 

All of this is offered free of charge!


Registrations


Registrations open at your local LibraryPlus on Monday 8 December.
  • Participants agree to read for a minimum of 15 minutes each day throughout the six week summer holiday break.
  • Participants agree to  report-in to the library to chat to a staff member at least 3 times over the break.
  • Parents agree to help their child achieve these goals.

Let's get reading!


Tuesday 25 November 2014

Reading Under the Stars

Summer Reading Challenge

Help stop the 'SUMMER SLIDE"

Now is the time to set your students up for summer reading success!

Teachers can spend up to six weeks when school returns reteaching lost skills to students who have spent little or no time reading in the holidays.

Children who read as few as six books during the holidays will maintain their reading level skills taught during the year.

A proven way to keep kids reading over Summer is participation in a summer reading programme.

TARGET GOAL: 1 MILLION READING MINUTES

Let's set a new record for Australia and New Zealand!

If each country beats their Summer Reading Minutes total from last year's challenge, then we are well on the way to reading a combined total of 1 million Reading Minutes and setting a new Summer Reading record for Australia and New Zealand.

* weekly prize draws and grand prizes for participating students
* prizes for the schools in each country with students actively logging Reading Minutes throughout the challenge
* grand prize school winners in each country that achieve the highest student participation rate(relative to total number of students in school)

Register yourself by visiting http://summerreadingchallenge.scholastic.com.au/member-home.aspx

Make up a simple username and password - maybe use the same for both so that you remember and fill in the details, don't forget to scroll down to find Auroa School.

Let's get reading!



Click on Scholastic books logo above to find great titles and recommended reads for children of all ages! or you can look at other recommended websites to find great books for your children to read!


Friday 26 September 2014

Our new library programme!

I am so excited about our new library programme at school. We have changed from the current system to a company called School Library Software http://www.schoollibrarysoftware.co.nz/

It offers our students access to the school library at all times from any computer or mobile device. Simply click on the link below and you can access our library:

https://u020714.microlibrarian.net/?ad=true

The students also have the opportunity to write book reviews or video reviews about books they have read in our library. Another great feature of this system is that the children can find out about what books are recommended reads or what to read next if they enjoyed a particular book. It also has a selection of ebooks which I am sure the children will be eager to try out!

From a management perspective the system is easy to use and it provides  management statistics making it easy to show reading progress in our library. It will also provide useful information to help successfully run our school library.Yesterday Mrs Gibson, Mrs Feek  and I completed the training. We are looking forward to using this programme and hope that the community will be able to find out more about what books are the most popular reads in the school and around the world!

The school library are very lucky to have been given the money from the school PTA to fund this project which we are very grateful for. Please click on the picture below to find out more about this software.


Tuesday 5 August 2014

LIANZA Children's Book Awards

Joy Cowley won the Ester Glen medal for junior fiction for her book Dunger at the book awards in Wellington last night. The story is set in the Marlborough Sounds and it follows William and Melissa who are roped into helping their old hippie grandparents fix up their holiday home. One of the judges, Jane Thomsen said "Joy Cowley has written a remarkable collection of children's books and stories. Dunger is no exception and with its gorgeous cover and overall production is well deserving of the Ester Glen medal." You can get this book from our school library.




Other winners on the night were Melinda Syzmanik's junior fiction novel A Winter's Day in 1939, which received the 2014 Librarians' Choice Award.



Dear Vincent by Mandy Hager won the Young Adult Fiction Award.

Wearable Wonders by Fifi Colston picked up the Elsie Locke Non-Fiction Award.

The Russell Clark Illustration Award was won by Raymond Huber for his book Flight of the Honeybee.

The Te Kura Pounamu Award for a Te Reo book was awarded to Kawata Teepa for the book Nga Kaitiaki a Tama!

Many of these books are available from our library click on the picture above for a link to the author or a review of the book.

Thursday 3 July 2014

Time to bake gingerbread horses!

Registrations for the annual gingerbread horse campaign are open. The campaign is aimed at raising funds for New Zealand Riding for the Disabled. Entrants follow a five-step process to register as a baker. They bake and decorate gingerbread horse biscuits and then sell those during NZRDA Awareness Week starting July 28th. Then donating the proceeds back to the RDA.
Registration includes a horse-shaped cookie cutter, recipe, decoration cards, clear bags, stickers and inserts for wrapping up the creations and advertising posters. Bakers can also win prizes.

There is an easy-to-use registration method, more access to resources and extra incentives for schools. Contact Rosina on 06 2785190 or register online at http://www.gingerbreadhorse.co.nz/


Thursday 26 June 2014

Taking old library books to Fiji

We have been busy 'weeding' books in the library. We found a large number of non fiction books in our library that have double copies and information that is dated. In our technology age I felt that it was important for our library to have up to date information for the children. Non-Fiction books are still an important part of our library - they are an alternative way of researching and a good resource for developing skimming and scanning skills, they are also very popular reading material for the boys in the school. I had been thinking about  what to do with these books and Cheran le Fleming had made contact with Thelma who has been living as a missionary in Fiji for the past six years. On our recent trip to Fiji with the le Fleming family we decided to pack some books in our suitcases to give to the missionaries to distribute to needy schools. We had eight bags of books.  They were delighted with the books and talked to us about a project Marine Reach www.marinereach.com I am currently investigating getting more boxes of books to their depot in Tauranga, so if you are heading that way and could drop a box off contact the school office.

Friday 30 May 2014

Pamela Allen - Mr McGee

Pamela Allen is a fabulous New Zealand author. She is an award-winning author and celebrated illustrator of children’s books. She has won and been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the prestigious Margaret Mahy Medal (2004). Allen also won the Australian CBC Picture Book of the Year for two consecutive years, in 1983 and 1984, for Who Sank the Boat, and Bertie and the Bear. Allen’s books have been published around the world, and have been translated into French, Swedish and Japanese. Some of her other titles are Belinda the Cow, In Mary Elizabeth's House and the series of books about Mr McGee.

Her stories are being brought to life by Capital E Theatre. They are performing in New Plymouth on the 3rd and 4th of June at the TSB Showplace. Check out Ticketmaster for ticket information.

"As huge packing cases are opened, new worlds emerge, filled with quirky characters and stories. Using an assortment of props and found objects, the three performers bring the tales to sweet, music-infused life.  This wonderful production features adaptations of Pamela Allen’s stories 'Mr McGee', 'Alexander’s Outing', 'Belinda', 'Brown Bread and Honey', 'Mary Elizabeth’s House' and 'Mr McGee and the Biting Flea'. Prepare to be mesmerised and enchanted."



Sunday 6 April 2014

EPIC


The school has access to EPIC which is a website formed by New Zealand libraries and the Ministry of Education. It is intended for use by principals and teachers, library staff, and students and gives them access to a worldwide range of electronic resources as you can see below. One of the cool things about EPIC is that you can access Encyclopedia Britannica for free which is an awesome tool for researching!
Teachers, students, and library staff may also access EPIC from home using their school's password and username login. Please note that EPIC require that a school's username and password are kept confidential to your school community and all users must abide by the terms and conditions of use. 
If you would like to password to use EPIC you can contact me in the school library or ask at the office for the password and log in details.
Through EPIC schools can access databases containing thousands of international and New Zealand magazines, newspapers, biographies, substantial reference works, and images. EPIC lets you access up-to-date full text articles covering a huge range of subjects.

What is available?

EPIC resources are purchased on a subscription basis on behalf of all New Zealand schools. Visit the Databases page for descriptions of the resources, and to filter by learning area and school level.

Monday 31 March 2014

QR Codes

New books that are going into the library system will have QR codes on the back of the book. These codes will lead you to an author's website or a book review about the book. It would be great to see classroom teachers taking a few ipads to the library and show the children how the QR codes work.

Monday 24 February 2014

The 39 Clues

A big thank you to the Forsyth family for their kind donation of the series of books The 39 Clues. This is a series of adventure novels written by a collaboration of authors. The books are about siblings Amy and Dan Cahill who are on a quest to find the 39 clues, ingredients to create a serum that creates the most powerful person in the world. Check out the new books page to go to the 39 clues website.


Thursday 20 February 2014

Reading Challenge

A brillaint way to get those YA readers to venture out of their favourite genre and build up books in their reading logs, Book Bingo is produced by Random House, Canada. Click on the Bingo for the link!


Tuesday 18 February 2014

Dodo Birds Don't Fly by Paris Whitehead

Congratulations Paris! Paris Whitehead has just published her first book called Dodo Birds Don't Fly. Paris is only 13 years of age and her skill has been compared to that of Lynley Dodd. Click on the book cover to find more about this inspiring young author.

Scholastic book orders

Just a reminder that Scholastic book orders are due in on Wednesday the 26th February. There are some fantastic books available and each purchase you make gives us points to buy books for our school library.

Sunday 9 February 2014

Thanks PTA!

Check out the wonderful furniture the PTA brought for our super library!





Tuesday 4 February 2014

Top reads for children for 2013

These are the top reading books for children as chosen by The Listener. You will find many of these titles in our school library.
Help celebrate International Book Giving Day by giving a book to a friend or relative, leaving a book in a waiting room or donating a book to someone who needs one. Check out the website for more information and make Valentines Day about loving books and reading.

Welcome back!

We welcome new students to the Auroa School library at the start of another year. Just to let you know that the school library is open Monday to Friday from 9.00am to 3:00pm. So please call in and visit our space or spend some time there with your child. Please have items issued before you take them from the library. Children can borrow up to four books and have two weeks to return them to the library. Make sure you return them to the library by the due date. We have a wide range of books your child can issue. We expect children to be responsible for the care and protection of our lovely library books. All children should have a safe method (book bag, plastic bag, separate pocket in their school bag) to transport books to and from school, away from drink bottles and lunch boxes. We hope you come and enjoy all your library has to offer you - see you soon.