Library

Mrs Holley

"Reading is to your brain what water is to a tree." Terry Hall

Premier’s Reading Challenge 2024

The students of St Joseph’s have, once again, been invited to participate in the 2024 NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC). The 2024 PRC began last Monday, 26th February and will conclude on Friday 23rd August 2024.

The PRC is a voluntary initiative that encourages in students a love of reading for pleasure and enables them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition, but a challenge for each student to read, to read more, and to read more widely.

As in previous years, the Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 teachers, and myself will be assisting children in these stages at school to read the 30 required books. However, if you are able to support your child at home to complete the Reading Challenge please do so! Those students in Stages 2 and 3 who are interested in completing the Challenge have already expressed their desire to do so! Reading logs and passwords will be distributed within the next two weeks, but you can begin logging books that have been read right now! For students in Years 1 - 6 your login details are the same as last year. You will find the student book lists on the PRC website and you will not need to login to access this information.

DON’T FORGET!! Any books on the list that your child has already read (or you have read to your child for K - 2) can be counted for this year’s Challenge, just note the title and the author. If you have any queries, please visit the PRC website https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/home.html or contact me mholley@arm.catholic.edu.au

Library Borrowing

Please don’t forget that THURSDAY and FRIDAY are library days at St Joseph’s. Students will require a library bag on that day for the safe transportation of library books between school and home.

Lunch Time in the Library

This year the library will be open every day during the second break for those students who wish to come in to listen to a story, read a story, colour a picture, draw a picture, play a board game, have a chat, complete a jigsaw or construct something amazing with the construction equipment. Students are most welcome to join us, we would love to see you there!

Reading at Home

Don't forget that your child has 24/7 access to reading material through SORA and World Book Online.

SORA

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

Celebrating International Women's Day 8th March 2024

Instructions for logging onto SORA are as follows:

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.

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

WORLD BOOK ONLINE

Our school has a subscription to World Book Online! This means you have FREE access to this wonderful resource from home or on the go with any internet-connected device. 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
text to speech (with 10 voices)
educational games and activities
science experiments
a dictionary
an atlas
interactive maps
map outlines
a tool for comparing places or animals.

Student:

expansive reference database
multimedia library
games
behind the headlines
citation builder
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.

User ID: joseph2340

Password: joseph2340