Library

House Reading Challenge

You may have seen notices about this year’s House Reading Challenge. It kicked off on Monday and concludes on Friday August 21st.  Traditionally students in year’s 7 – 9 compete in their sports houses to read the most books during the challenge. They record their reading on coloured house slips, available in the library and add them to the relevant house jar e.g. Red for Maroondah, etc. This is still one way to record their reading but this year, I have added a new element to the challenge. 

Students will also be able to log their reading using Beanstack. It’s an app whereby students record their reading, enter challenges to earn badges.  I have set a Community Reading Goal of 83,000 minutes by the end of August. There is also the facility to ‘verify’ a students reading if they go over the limits set up in the system, to ensure there is a faithful representation of that students reading. Students are grouped by English Classes and House groups and will be competing to see which house can read the most books by the end of the challenge.

Accessing Beanstack

You can access Beanstack through Compass – go to the Favourites tab and click on ‘Beanstack’ to go to our schools’ page.  Log-in to Beanstack using their schools email address and Compass password. 

NOTE: This is not a compulsory app, as mentioned, students can still enter the challenge by recording their reading on coloured House slips in the library.

Resources

For your information, I’ve included a link to an introductory video that might be helpful to understand how Beanstack works.

Rewards

The prize for the winning house is a pizza lunch in the library plus the Reader’s Cup Trophy (presented to the winning house at the pizza lunch). There are also individual prizes for the top 3 students who read the most books over the challenge (regardless of their sports house). 

Books and Brownies

Books and Brownies is back by popular demand for the winter months. Our first session will be returning on Wednesday 20th May at lunch time.

Students can sign up to be part of Books and Brownies and are encouraged to bring along a book they are currently reading to share with the group while eating chocolate brownies and drinking hot chocolates in The Cube. They are also given first choice for borrowing new resources and to make recommendations for potential new books to purchase for the library.

The sign-up sheet will be at the library desk from Monday 18th May. There are limited spaces, so students will need to get in quick.