National Library Trip

We recently took a group of Year 5 and 6 Lunchtime librarians to the National Library as acknowledgement of the hard work and accomplishments in the library this year.

The National Library is an awesome place.

The students got a great tour, they were taken down into the basement where there are several million books stored for research purposes.  It was amazing for us to see, some of the books were very very old.  We hung out on the lifelines table and were also taken up to the Alexander Turnbull Library where we got to read some old books in the Reading Rooms.

It was a great trip, and a big thanks to the students who have given their time in the library this year, it was a pleasure to spend the afternoon with you.

Book Buying

We had a great day book buying with some awesome Year 5 students recently.  Thanks Georgia, Lulu, Megan, Danny and Hannah for your help on our book buying day.  Look for these great reads being added to our collection soon....

Having a Yarn in the Library!

On Tuesdays at lunch time there are a group of us who are enjoying "having a yarn in the library".  We have started a crochet club with the help of Deryn and are starting to get the basic stitch down pat.

We have all sorts of projects in mind....have you heard of Yarn Bombing?  Sounds fun to us!!

Happy Birthday Hairy Maclary.

Hairy Maclary turned 30 in the month of July... he certainly is a much loved character of our NZ literary world.

We celebrated at Redwood School today and had lots of fun.

We had some lovely Grandmothers come and read Hairy Maclary stories to the children in the junior school.  It was so much fun.

The library was a buzz of activity at lunchtime, with colouring and various other activities.

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY HAIRY MACLARY.

Reading Aloud

We had a great Read Aloud session at Redwood School today - myths, legends and stories from around the world under their arms, teachers headed off straight after morning tea to different classrooms to share a story.

The children always love it, and the teachers do too!

Mrs Goodin reads to the children in Room 11.

Mrs Mass reads to the children in Room 20.

Our Treasure Box

We have a wonderful treasure box in our school library.  One of the most popular books is the Star Wars pop up guide.

It is full of awesome things

Teachers use the Treasure Box as a reward for lots of different things.  It is a special time to enjoy the library.  What do you need to do to get a Treasure Box pass from your teacher?

Book Week Fun!

What a successful book week we have had.  The new theme of Dive into Reading provided all sorts of displays and new books to interest our readers...

We enjoyed our visiting author Apirana Taylor, who told wonderful stories, shared some of his writings with us and captivated us with the use of his instruments.

The library was buzzing at lunch times with all sorts of great activities.  There was themed colouring, doodle art and the student librarians taught how to make origami fish.

Thanks to all the families who supported the PFG sausage sizzle and enjoyed some time reading together and visiting our library

We ended the week with an awesome flash mob in assembly, well done to all the children in Kereru Syndicate who wowed us with their performance.  It was great to see so many creative Make a Splash outfits too!

DIVE INTO READING!

Book week is here, and we are so excited to reveal our new theme. The library is decked out in style with all sorts of fun and interesting things for the children to enjoy. Lot of teachers, parents and students have worked hard to make the library look so cool. Thanks! There will be lots of extra exciting activities going on this week at school.

New Books!

Thanks to all families who purchased books from our recent Scholastic Book Club order.  As you may remember for every 5 books ordered the Redwood School Library received a free book.

Look at all these lovely new books we are now able to add to our collection.

Your support is greatly appreciated.

Any Questions?

AnyQuestions.co.nz is a free online reference service funded by the Ministry of Education to provide a quality information literacy service to New Zealand school students. AnyQuestions.co.nz is open Monday to Friday 1-6pm and is staffed by friendly librarians from around New Zealand. The aim of the service is not to give students the answer, but rather to teach them valuable information literacy skills so they can find the information for themselves.

AnyQuestions will work on any computer or device with access to the internet and is free and easy to use. We deal with questions on any topic (from English to Science and everything in between!) and we work with primary, intermediate and secondary students.

ManyAnswers.co.nz is home to 100s of answers to the most popular questions asked on AnyQuestions.co.nz. The number of entries on ManyAnswers.co.nz is expanding all the time, with both English and te reo Māori answers. All answers are written in an approved information literacy fashion guiding students through the process of finding information for themselves.

ManyAnswers.co.nz is free and easy to use, 24 hours of the day, and better yet if you can't find the answer you are looking for you can submit a question

AnyQuestions.co.nz

ManyAnswers.co.nz

Utterly Me, Clarice Bean

                                         Utterly me, Clarice Bean,

                                                       By Lauren Child

This is a story about a young girl named Clarice Bean. She and her bestie Betty Moody obsessed with a series of books 'Ruby Redfort'.

At school Clarice and Betty are assigned to do a book display on their choice of an educational book. Betty goes missing and so does the rest of her family. Things turn to custard at school for Clarice. Because Betty has gone missing she has to face her worst nightmare. Being partners with Karl Wrenbury . . .

Mrs Wilberton is Clarice's teacher and they hate each other. Clarice is always being told off for dreaming. Probably about Ruby Redfort.

Meanwhile mum is going mental when grandad gets kicked out of his retirement home. Mum has to find a new home, but grandad has to give away one of his beloved dogs.........

Find out more in Utterly Me, Clarice Bean by Lauren Child.

This book is aimed for slightly less confident readers around the age 8-10.

I rate this book 3 and a half stars

By Kate Lucinsky Rm 18

Storyteller 2013

We have started our storyteller lunchtime readings for 2013.  Hannah from Room 19 read to the children in Room 3 on Thursday in the Library at lunchtime.  The storyteller is a great way to promote our love of literacy at Redwood School.  The older children enjoy reading and the younger children love being read to!

This week Hannah read two favourites -

Anthony Browne is an awesome author and this book shows how Mr Piggott and his sons take for granted all that Mrs Piggott does for them and around the home.  When she leaves and leaves them a note saying "You are Pigs" they are forced to take care of themselves, there is some lovely illustrations in this book shadowing the text, as well as humor and irony.

Joy Watson is a New Zealand writer, and the Grandpa stories are much loved.  Grandpa and Grandma are much loved characters and have some gentle battles over change.  These books provide a good giggle for all ages.

Student Librarian Book Reviews

SNOWED UNDER BY SERGE BLOCH

review by Sneha

This book is about a little boy who has a good ear and hears all about the Christmas confusions in the house, like this - "When I told her her how worried I was about Santa, she said that he was snowed under."  AND what does Snowed under mean?  Flip the pages through this book and you will get tied up with the confusion.

Suitable for all ages.

Enjoy!

STORMBREAKER: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL BY ANTHONY HOROWITZ

reveiw by Conor

I thought this was AWESOME!!  It is about a 14 year old boy named Alex Rider.  His uncle says that he is a banker at a bank called the Royal and General Bank.  But, when Alex's uncle gets shot, Alex is informed his uncle ws really an agent for the M16 and now they want Alex to join them.  This book is a graphic novel which means it is a comic stip. Boys and Girls would both enjoy this book.

UNDER THE MOUNTAIN BY MAURICE GEE

review by Kate L 

Rachel and Theo Matheson are special red headed twins.  They have no idea what is haunting them, until an old man comes along and explains it all.  They find that only they can stop what is happening under the mountain.  This book is aimed at more older and mature readers, and has been made into an exciting movie.

New Books

Thanks to the Sinclair family who donated these books at the end of 2012 to commemorate their boys time at Redwood School.  It is wonderful to have our collection added to by with books that have been enjoyed.  These books are recommended for boys in Years 5 and 6.

Great Summer Readers!

Thanks to these super summer readers who independently filled out their summer reading log and brought in it to school at the start of the year.  We are so glad you kept up your reading over summer, and even more pleased that you are reading for pleasure.

Thank you to Gecko Publishing who kindly donated some books as rewards for these kids!

WELCOME TO 2013 IN THE LIBRARY

WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL....the library team are looking forward to a fantastic year and we already have lots of fun things planned for the library in 2013.

So how was your summer?  And what did you read?

I wanted to share two of my favourite summer reading books.

Mrs Goodin recommended Bootleg by Alex Shearer to me.

I just loved it.  Imagine a world where chocolate was illegal..... I know it is a terrible thought.  In this story chocolate becomes outlawed by the Good For You party.  A couple of lads, Huntly and Smudger, can't live with this and come up with a plan.....

My 10 year old also read this book and really enjoyed it, so a great read for our year 5/6 students.  Thanks Mrs Goodin for the suggestion.

My other favourite summer read was One Dog and His Boy by Eva Ibbotson

This is a really lovely book, Hal is the nicest little boy, and all he ever wanted was a dog, and his parents give him everything else you could think of BUT a dog.  Then they do this really mean thing, they hire a dog for a weekend for him - from a place called rent-a-pet-agency.  And the worst part is they don't even tell him that his dog is only rented.  How mean is that?  
You're not believing me when I said this was a really lovely book now are you?  Well it is and I recommend you read it to find out!

I think children in Years 4, 5 & 6 would like this book, it might be a nice one to read to them Mums and Dads, you might like it too!

We'd love to hear about what you read over the summer, so pop in and see Jan or myself anytime, or feel free to leave a comment and book recommendation  on this blog.

Miss Gargan