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Wow! Just wow! What more can I say.

A group of year six leavers decided to leave their special mark on our library walls. These wonderful mosaics have been created as a gift to the school after all their years here. And what a gift! The mosaic panels line the entrance to the library. One panel leads us to a world of stories and fantasy and the other is dedicated to non-fiction and highlights facts found in books. So much time and work has gone in to these panels and they truly are beautiful.

A huge thank you to the boys and girls who created these wonderful panels and making our library entrance so amazing. So proud of you all.

I wish you all the very best as you venture off to Intermediate.

Our library tree looks amazing. Our lovely caretaker has been hard at work again and the tree is looking very much like a winter Christmas. There is a train whizzing round the tracks in and out behind the tree. The secret cave has elves sitting around a camp fire reading books. Just delightful. Do pop in and have a look. As the children say – “it is awesome”.

Today was a special mufti day where students dressed up with a Christmas theme and brought in a gold coin donation for charity.

Team 17 came into the library all dressed in bright Christmas colours but they didn’t come alone.

They brought a special visitor.  Piper came in with her teacher/owner to listen to stories.  Here she is listening to Nyah and obviously enjoying the pictures too by the look of things.

Piper is a Standard Poodle and as you can see very keen on reading! She even wanted her own book out. Great to see that she wore her reindeer ears getting right in to the spirit of our special day.

It is great to be back for term four. I hope you all had lovely holidays and read lots of good books.The grounds around our library are looking gorgeous. The trees lining the path are laden with blossoms and are simply stunning. The new library signpost looks as if it is in its own little wonderland with the over-hanging pink blossoms.

           One  of our junior teams decided it was just too nice to stay indoors today and spent time under the blossoms sharing ideas and enjoying the sunshine. Some of the children made up their own pretend games of how they would get to the places on the signpost. How cool would that be to travel to Hogwarts!

To celebrate Percy Jackson’s 10th year of publication we held a Percy party at lunch time today. It was crazy with heaps of senior children answering questions about Percy Jackson and his books. You could tell straight away who the real fans were with their hands up constantly. Some children created posters, and one even wrote poem about Percy. It was a hectic, noisy library with lots of bookmarks given out as prizes for answering questions. I hate to admit it but they knew more than I did. I had to look at the answers. I will have to read my books again.

I want to thank our wonderful caretaker for creating such wonderful props to add to our display.

Check out this awesome trailer for author Rick Riordan’s latest series, coming soon. Can’t wait!

Magnus Chase and the gods of Asgard

Below is a clip of our pipe cleaner challenge in action for our latest Maker Monday.

While it may not happen every Monday it is our intention to keep these activities going especially as the children are so keen.

It is always wonderful to see children coming to the library prepared to do research or to find a new book to read. Bringing pens and paper, books and devices always makes the library visits easier.

Milla was certainly eager and very prepared today, including bringing a big smile.

Ryan and George hard at library duty today after our lunch time book club. They were totally oblivious to the other students in the library and also to having their photo taken. I don’t think I can see much work going on here today but it is so lovely to see the boys so involved with their books.

The book they both happen to be reading is

Little Manfred

By Michael  Morpurgo

The most magnificent thing

By Ashley Spires

We are moving towards making some fun changes in our school library. As part of the Makerspace movement we are hoping to have Makerpsace Mondays where children are offered the chance to be creative. We will have Lego challenges, chances to create stop-start animations, create artistic items out of old books and heaps of other activities, many science based. One of the main ideas of the Makerpsace movement is the idea of creating something new. This delightful picture book, just new to our library,  highlights the whole idea of making something from start to finish. Beautifully illustrated, this is a perfect example of how imagination and creative thinking can inspire some of the best things in life. Great for our key competencies of “thinker” and “sparkle”.

The New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults is happening in August. Up until July 31st children can vote for their favourite book in the Children’s Choice section.

There are four categories to choose from. As many of you will know my own book Canterbury Quake : My New Zealand Story is a finalist in the junior fiction category. In fact I feel very honored that children nominated my book which put it through to the finalists section. If you haven’t voted yet just click on the image below and get started. Thank you to those who have voted for my book as their favourite. It means so much.