Children’s Book Week - August 19th to 25th

Each year since 1945 the Children’s Book Council of Australia has brought children and books together through CBCA Book Week. This year CBCA Book Week will be held during August 21-25 (Week 6 of Term 3). During Book Week St. Joseph’s will be celebrating with a Book Fair and Book Week Parade.

Children’s Book Week also recognises the winners of the Children’s Book Council of the Year Awards. As stated previously, the CBCA Book of the Year is broken down into six categories: Older Readers (high school students), Younger Readers, Early Childhood, Picture Books, The Eve Pownall Award (for documenting factual content) and the CBCA Award for New Illustrator.

This week I would like to draw your attention to the shortlisted books for the Eve Pownall Award and the CBCA Award for New Illustrator.

The official 2023 winners will be announced on the 19th of August 2023 at noon.

Book Week – Book Fair

St Joseph’s annual Book Fair will once again be held in conjunction with our Book Week Celebrations. The books for sale will be arriving at school on Thursday, August 17th, and students will have the opportunity to browse through them on Friday, August 18th during their class library time. Once the students have had the opportunity to browse through the books, they will complete a wish list, which they will then take home to share with their family. Should your child wish to purchase a book from the book fair, it may be done in one of two ways –

Make a secure credit card payment online (instructions will be detailed on the back of your child’s wish list)
Send the money into school in a sealed and labelled envelope

Please ensure your child’s wish list accompanies the payment receipt or cash when they are collecting their book/s from the Book Fair.

Should the book your child wishes to purchase sell out, be assured that I am able to place an order for their chosen book which means they will still receive their book but at a later date (usually the following week).

Once the books for the Book Fair have arrived at school, photos will be taken of them and placed on the school’s Facebook page so that you are able to view the books that are available for purchase. By purchasing from the Book Fair, apart from taking home some wonderful stories to share with your family, you will help our school earn credit with Scholastic, which then enables us to purchase resources for the library. However, I must stress that your participation in Book Fair is entirely voluntary.

The Book Fair will be open for business Tuesday August 22nd, Wednesday August 23rd, Thursday August 24th or Friday August 25th before school, and during the first and second break times.

Book Week - Book Character Parade

We are excited, once again, to be able to dress up for our Book Week Book Character Parade. Whilst dressing up as a favourite book character can be a fun filled experience for students, it can become a frustrating, time consuming headache for parents and caregivers. Please, let me reassure you that simple ideas using clothing, equipment and materials that you already have at home can often be the best way to go. Don’t forget to check in with family and friends to see what they have available to borrow, or, op shops have a wonderful supply of bits and pieces that will assist in giving your costume that finishing touch. The internet can also be a valuable source of inspiring, inexpensive ideas if you are stuck. The theme for Book Week 2023 is READ, GROW, INSPIRE. You might consider this when deciding on your character costume. What book have you read that has helped you to grow and inspired you to do something, create something or become something?

This year our Book Week Book Character Parade will be held on Friday, August 25th at 10.00am. Students should come to school dressed as their favourite book character on that day. We will also celebrate Grandparents Day on this day - a wonderful family celebration! Stay and have morning tea on the lawn and pop in to check out the Book Fair!

In the interest of student safety there are a couple of rules we need to have in place on the day:

No thongs or high heels (they are just not practical for school life)
Clothing that is appropriate for the weather conditions and school environment - don't forget your hat
Students should know who their character is and what book they are from
Should a student not wish to participate, school uniform is to be worn. But remember “the more, the merrier”!

2023 Premier's Reading Challenge - Closing Soon

The closing date for the 2023 Premier’s Reading Challenge is fast approaching on Friday, 18th of August, 2023 - just 11 days away! Some students have already returned their completed reading logs to school - an achievement they should be extremely proud of! Students who are very close to finishing, that require a few extra books to get them over the line, please let me know and I will do my very best to help you get to the finish line. Please ensure you complete your reading log before August 18th so that they are able to be validated (this needs to happen so that your certificate can be awarded). Sadly, you will not be able to add books after this date. Don’t forget that many of the Premier’s Reading Challenge books are available on SORA. Just look in the collections and you will see collections devoted to each section of the challenge.

Overdue Books

Important Dates for Term

18th August Premier’s Reading Challenge closes
21st - 25th August Book Week 2023
21st - 25th August St Joseph’s Book Fair
25th August Book Week Character Parade

Library Borrowing

Don't forget that library book borrowing continues to occur on Thursdays (Stage 3) and Fridays (Early Stage 1, Stage 1 and Stage 2) for all St Joseph’s School students. Please don’t forget to bring your library bag to ensure the safe transportation of borrowed books between home and school.

Reading at Home

The students at St Joseph’s are able to access ebooks, audiobooks and magazine 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

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Friday Sport- Tennis