Library Borrowing – General Information

A reminder this year that THURSDAY and FRIDAY are Library Days at St Joseph’s! Stage 3 students will visit the library on Thursday and Early Stage 1, Stage 1 and Stage 2 will have their library visit on Friday. During their class visit every student will have the opportunity to browse the selection of books available and choose suitable reading material to borrow for reading at home. It is an expectation at St Joseph’s that ALL students have a library bag on their library borrowing day. Library bags provide protection for borrowed library books during their transportation between school and home; anything that will provide this protection is suitable for use as a library bag. Please ensure your child’s name is clearly marked on their library bag.

Term 1 Borrowing Limits

Early Stage 1 – two books each visit return weekly

Stage 1 – three books each visit return weekly

Stage 2 – four books each visit return fortnightly

Stage 3 – four books each visit return fortnightly

Lunch Time in the Library

The library will be open for students to enjoy on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday during the second break. If you would like to take the opportunity to find a quiet corner to read a

book, play a board game, solve a jigsaw, colour a picture or perhaps draw one, you are most welcome to use the library. I look forward to seeing there!

Premier’s Reading Challenge 2023

Yes, yes, yes - it’s on again and will soon be upon us! Once again the students at St Joseph’s will have the opportunity to complete the 2023 NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge. The Premier’s Reading Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely. The Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC) is open to all NSW students in Kindergarten to Year 10. To complete the Challenge you must read a certain number of books, the age appropriate list of books can be accessed on the 2023 NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge website https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/home.html Further information will be sent home in the coming weeks and there will be further updates provided in forthcoming newsletters. The Challenge opens on Monday 27th February 2023 and closes on Friday 18 August 2023.

Scholastic Book Club

Scholastic Book Club provides the families of St Joseph’s with the opportunity to purchase books at reduced prices. Brochures are sent home with your child 8 times a year. The books offered on each brochure are selected for their appeal to the age group identified on the brochure. Once again, St Joseph’s will be offering this service throughout 2023. There is absolutely no obligation for families to buy, however, should you wish to purchase a book through Book Club you may send the completed order form into school, together with correct money in an envelope or zip lock bag, clearly marked with Book Club and your child’s name and class. There is also an option for ordering online via Scholastic’s cashless ordering system (LOOP); information about LOOP may be found on the Book Club catalogue. Books purchased through Book Club enable our school to receive credit points with Scholastic, which the school is then able to use to purchase books and classroom resources. Should you wish to purchase a book through Book Club as a gift for your child, please notify the school and when it arrives we will hold it for you and notify you by phone or email so that you are able to collect it from the office. Once the Book Club window closes all orders will be filled and sent to the school ready for distribution.

Our first book club for 2023 closes on Thursday 16th February. Unfortunately, late orders are unable to be processed.

Reading at Home

The students at St Joseph’s are able to access ebooks and audiobooks through SORA, the Armidale Diocese digital library. SORA has an extensive collection of ebooks, audiobooks and magazines for students of all ages.

Instructions for logging onto SORA are as follows:

SORA

Getting started with Sora

Sora - get free ebooks and audiobooks from your school.

Step 1: Install the SORA app from Apple App Store or Google Play Store, or soraapp.com.

Step 2: When in SORA, click on I have a setup code, then sign in.

The “setup” code is cenetau

Sign into your School – Select ACEN from the dropdown box.

Step 3: Browse the explore tab and borrow a book. Your book will open so you can start reading right away.

Step 4: Close the book and go to the shelf to see all your books. From there, you can:

Select Open book or Open audiobook to read or listen to the book.
Select Options to renew or return the book and more.

© 2020 OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

You will need to use your school username and password to access this.

WORLD BOOK ONLINE

St Joseph’s also has a subscription to World Book Online! This means that our students have access to this wonderful resource free of charge should they wish to access it from home. World Book Online may be accessed via the Oliver home page or by visiting the World Book website www.worldbookonline.com

World Book Online is a safe, trusted, 21st-century learning environment for students.

The World Book products our school has access to include:

Kids: simple navigation, easy to read articles, translations and text to speech (with 10 voices). It includes educational games, activities, science experiments, a dictionary, an atlas, interactive maps, map outlines and a tool for comparing places or animals.

Student: expansive reference database and multimedia library. It includes games, behind the headlines, citation builder and research tools.

Timelines: over 650 timelines including Gold Rushes in Australia, Australian Prime Ministers, Cricket World Cup, Star Wars and Harry Potter. Edit or create your own timelines.

Our User ID: joseph2340

Password: joseph2340

Library Lovers Day

Not only is this Tuesday, February 14th Valentine’s Day, it is also Library Lovers Day! So tomorrow, I ask you to find some time in the day to show your love of libraries and/or books by taking the time to read, listen to or talk about a book!

Happy Library Lovers Day!

Student Support

Mrs Emily Sullivan