Library News

Book Week - Save the Date!

St Mary's will be celebrating book week this year on Friday, August 15, with a dress-up parade and the annual Book Fair.

If you'd like to start planning your book week costumes during the holidays, this year's theme is "Book an Adventure!" Think of a book that has taken you on an adventure, maybe to a fantastical land or through challenges that got your heart racing. Come to school dressed as your favourite character from that book!

Premier's Reading Challenge Legends!

Congratulations to these students who have already finished the Premier's Reading Challenge! The challenge remains open until September 25.

Kid Librarian

Check out our latest book displays by students at St Mary's!

Lesson Spotlight

For this newsletter I'd like to share from our Stage 3 library lessons. We have been learning about the Dewey Decimal System and focusing in on the 10 main classes and their 10 divisions within each lesson. But we have mainly been exploring Scratch, a free coding community designed for children to learn the foundational concepts of writing computer code. 

Computer coding may well be a redundant skill by the time these kids are entering the workforce, but the process of coding is incredibly beneficial for young brains as it requires constant problem-solving and working step-by-step to get a desired outcome. They are often highly motivated to achieve a desired action or reaction with their characters and this pushes them to think creatively and persist in the face of problems.

This term the students have had a task-list with 5 tasks to complete using Scratch including:

1. Making the sprite (object/character) move from one side of the screen to the other
2. Making the sprite change colour
3. Making the sprite react to another sprite
4. Making multiple sprites react to each other
5. Making a dance party happen

Here is an example of the coding blocks students use to fulfil tasks:

Below are some of examples of these tasks completed by students, as well as a couple of examples of students who have created games using Scratch (we have a huge range of familiarity with Scratch in the classroom, with some students learning it for the first time and others who are well versed in the tool)

Elise's Dance Party

Maddy's Changing Colours

Faith's Moving Cat

Hunter's Soccer Game

Cassius's Flappy Bat Game

Adventures of The Stroogle

The library has a long-established tradition of sending The Stroogle out on adventures with students who report back through a journal. Here is an entry from Charlotte who took The Stroogle adventuring last week.

(The Stroogle is a character developed by Cameron Stelzer)

Library Lesson/Borrowing Days

ES1 - Wednesday

S1 - Thursday

S2 - Wednesday

S3 - Thursday

Library Opening Hours for Students