A big week in the Library

Book Week highlights 19-23 August

We celebrated a fantastic Book Week, with plenty of engaging activities for our keen readers and writers.

Monday

Harry Potter Day was held for NHS Muggles on Monday 19 August. Students were able to sample Butter Beer and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans (flavours included Banana, Black Pepper, Blueberry, Booger, Candyfloss, Cherry, Cinnamon, Dirt, Earthworm, Earwax, Grass, Green Apple, Marshmallow, Rotten Egg, Sausage, Lemon, Soap, Tutti-Fruitti, Vomit and Watermelon). A Harry Potter quiz was held with a group of Year 7 students – Emmy, Florence, Jacqui, Lucy, Danika and Pippi coming out on top.

Following the success of our Harry Potter Day we are sharing our Butter Beer Recipe.

Butter Beer - makes approximately 1 litre

• 4 cans A & W Vanilla Cream Soda (regular pink cream soda won’t produce the same result)
• ¼ cup Monin Butterscotch Syrup (available from catering suppliers)
• Whipped Cream

Method : Pour cans of vanilla cream soda into a jug, add butterscotch syrup and blitz with a stick blender. Pour into individual glasses. Top with whipped cream and enjoy!

Tuesday

The library held a Kahoot based around the Book Week theme – Reading is My Secret Power.  Around 15 teams battled it out testing their book and superhero knowledge.  Bowls of popcorn were provided to all participants – a known brain food.  The Winning teams were only separated by their reaction times and shared the prize of a number of variety packs of chocolate.  

Wednesday

Jo Foley (teacher) led a fantastic session of Blackout Poetry.

Using various creative techniques, students wrote poetry using old texts as prompts.   The poems below are two of the many created during lunchtime from one page of The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif by Najaf Mazari.

By Greta, Year 12:

Peaceful rebellion, violent protest, cage, of wire.

Within the cage many, kept, the most colourful, birds, red, green, blue, yellow.

Other birds in the big cage are not so colourful.

How wrong to keep these birds from the life they were made by God to live!

But now the birds are gone.

I am standing, on the floor of the cage.

By Anon:

Childhood is, special, and kind 

To heaven, life, earth and spirit

Smiling quietly 

We also announced the winners of the Six-Word Review.   Many thanks to all who entered.

The winners were Karla and Mila, both from Year 9. Well done: it’s not easy to condense a review down to six words!

Karla chose the book One of Us is Lying by Karen M McManus

                Murder, Breakfast Club, secrets leaked online.

Mila chose two books, 

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

                Riveting mystery for YA lovers

Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington

                Beautiful account of amazing, unexpected journey.

Thursday

We held our first Great Book Swap to aid the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. Thank you to the many staff, students and parents who donated a variety of lovely second-hand books for our sale.   There was a fantastic choice of titles and subjects available to students and staff on the day in exchange for a gold coin donation.

Through this activity, we focused our attention on the disadvantages experienced in remote communities and encouraged the school community to raise funds and advocate for more equal access to literacy resources for remote communities. Our fundraising total including online, Facebook and the Great Book Swap donations was $1189.50. Many thanks to Diana who set up the fund raising page and worked tirelessly to support and promote the event and to all those who donated books, time and money for this event.  

Indigenous Literacy Day is tomorrow, Wednesday 4 September. The day is a national celebration of indigenous culture, stories, language and literacy.

Friday

This was the close of a very successful Book Week, with Shrink Art and the announcement of the much anticipated Guess which Teacher is Reading these Books competition. The Shrink Art was really popular, with 25+ students making badges, earrings, fridge magnets and key rings.  The Guess which Teachers competition winner was Daniel, Year 8 - congratulations and enjoy the chocolate Scrabble!

It was a close competition with several runners up, the only thing separating some entries was the correct spelling of teacher’s names.  Well done Sophie, Minnie, Claire, Mia, Louka and Rizzi.    

Some of the more interesting answers were “Philosophy Club Guy” and “Rich Lady in the office” ….. we’d all love to know who that is!

Finally, we would like to give a special thank you to Dhairya, Dulcie, Lachie and Nick our fabulous Student Assistants who helped out with the various activities during Book Week.

Coming up: Make and Take Mondays

September 9 – Spring Seed Bombs – Seed bombs are a set and forget planting method that's been used for centuries and they're easy to make. Using a few organic materials and indigenous seeds make some seed bombs to distribute in your garden or gift them to a gardening friend.

September 16 – Friendship Bracelets – using embroidery floss, learn the two basic knots to create various patterns and make a friendship bracelet.

All materials provided – don’t forget to bring your lunch.

Melbourne Writers Festival

We will be enjoying the great program for young adults and older readers at the Melbourne Writers' Festival - go to https://mwf.com.au  to check it out.