Celebrating Book Week 2014

BOOK WEEK 16th AUGUST - 22nd AUGUST 2014

So this week we have been celebrating book week.  This year the them is:

"Connect to Reading - Reading to Connect".

For more information on Book Week, including the list of shortlisted books of 2014 follow this link to the Children's Book Council of Australia website:

http://cbca.org.au/index.htm 

Below are some photo images of displays that our library staff have created to promote the theme for book week and to encourage students to pick up a book during the celebration.

 

This puzzle display promotes the book week theme of "Connect to reading-Reading to connect".  It prompts people to think about what real things in life they can connect to through reading by asking them to assemble the picture puzzles.  The puzzles reveal answers such as, places, people, ideas/imagination, learning, culture, emotions and more.

 

The following displays highlight the Children's Book Council Australian Shortlisted books and displays that include from Page to Screen titles and that again connect to reading.

 

 

Promoting book week is not just about encouraging students to read, but also can be used as an opportunity to engage with them through reading and so we also arrange some alternative activities for students to participate in during their weekly library lessons.  

The activities running this year that have been a big hit with the primary students include the following:

• The Book Scavenger Hunt
• A game of Charades
• Making funny faces
• Making Homemade Books

Blog on Track!

In my last blog I was confused and really struggling. This entry however, I have decided to talk about things that I know about and one of those is the library at my school. I don’t wish to name the school that I work for, even though they have their own internet and public profile, I don’t feel it is appropriate for me to name them.

Anyway I can still talk about my work in the context of the events that we run and how we manage to do certain library tasks. So Blog on Track is going to talk about the writer’s festival that we celebrated just last week.

As a Library (Resource Centre) with a staff of 2 full-timers, 1 part-timer and a Head of Library for over 1750 students from years Prep to 12 who share the same library, there are times we find it a challenge to celebrate events.  However we find it an integral part of working in a library in this modern age to promote and encourage students learning, reading and writing as best we can.

This year the school celebrated the 2014 Writer’s Festival week during 4^th to the 8^th August and there was no exception in collaborating with the English Department to devise the following activities, enabling and encouraging students to get involved and enjoy the celebration.

GUEST SPEAKERS:

The Nelson Twins - one of the most unique stand-up comedy acts in the world :
http://www.nelsontwins.com.au/

Anne E Stewart – A Dream time Storyteller :  
http://anneestewart.com.au/

David Vincent (former child soldier) :
http://davidnyuolvincent.com/

Father Bob Maguire :
http://fatherbobmaguire.com/

ACTIVITIES:

• Junior and Senior Spelling Bee – Spelling competition 
• On the Box – A game where students are encouraged to stand on a box in front of a crowed and speak about anything and everything, but the catch is they must NOT say the words “Um…” or “Ah…” or they are out of the game! 
• Teacher Student Debate 
• Book Hurling Contest – This popular game allows students to use different sized, old and dust covered books to throw across the oval in a competition to see who can throw the books further.  The size of the book gains them points 100 for large over 100 pages and 50 for under 100 pages.  (Please note: no books were harmed in the contest and all books were outdated and weeded from our collection beforehand).
  
  
  Our school successfully ran these multiple guest speaker workshops and activity events throughout the whole week appealing to all year levels and staff members as best we could.
   

Me trying to blog!

My SUNDAY so far:
Ok, so I mention in my profile that I am blogging for the purpose of study.  My study is the Diploma Library and Information Services and I am in to the my second year of study.  Right now I am freaking out, because I have no idea what to blog about.  Creativity really doesn't come easily to me. So I figure I will just talk about what is happening for now and I'll go from there and hope that I can post some interesting things in the future.

This morning after a good nights rest, I felt confident in starting some sort of blog!
Being a Sunday and considering all that traditional day of rest talk, I of course skipped church and at 10AM first things first I made this.....

Yes that's right a good old cup of Joe!  Who can function without it? Certainly not me! ; )

Soldiering on with my mission of aiming to at least start a blog, I review the course material on creating a blog, sign up and fill out my blog profile.  At this point everything is looking all right, only by now it is 12:20pm and I really haven't achieved much.  I can hear my ex-partner in the background playing zombies vs plants in the computer room and it distracts me!  I still can't think of what to do for my blog.

Obviously I need more planning time and brain storming of ideas.  I think to myself this is boring as and I am really not very good at this, but you know what, there is something on my blog, so what am I complaining about!!!?  I am not getting very far, so you know what it is time for another coffee and i might work on one of my other subjects and see how I go with those.

Ah...ha...a revelation!  I've decided over the coming days to talk about some things that our school did to celebrate writers festival last week and  to discuss some of the things I have been working on at work for Book Week and the children's book week council shortlisted books.  So stay tuned if book week is your thing or if you would just like to hear about some of the things that other schools are doing to celebrate this event.