Library

Mrs Holley

Welcome Back Everyone!

Welcome to an exciting year of book borrowing, library events and activities, and lots and lots of visits to the library. I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday and that Santa delivered heaps of amazing books for you to enjoy during your holiday reading! A special welcome to our new St. Joseph’s families, I look forward to catching up with you in the forthcoming year.

As the year unfolds there will be fortnightly updates in the newsletter about what is going on in the library. This year we will be having our usual big events such as Book Week, Book Fair, Premier’s Reading Challenge and Simultaneous Storytime as well as weekly library lessons and break time activities. Please take the time to check out the newsletter to find out what is happening in the amazing world of books, authors and illustrations.

General Information - Library Borrowing

Developing a life-long love of reading is paramount to everything we do in the library - when our students read and/or listen to the enchanting books we have in our library collection they are hopefully on their way to achieving this goal.

This year each class will have their 30 minute library lesson on either THURSDAY or FRIDAY. Early Stage 1 (Kindergarten), Stage 1 (Years 1 & 2) and Stage 2 (Years 3 & 4) will have their library lesson on FRIDAY, whilst Stage 3 (Years 5 & 6) will have their library lesson on THURSDAY.

During the library lesson we will read great books just for the fun of it, we will also focus on literature appreciation (why a book is a good book), information literacy (where to find the information resources in the library and what to do with them) and best of all, the students get to borrow great books to take home and read for free!

Borrowed books may be kept at home for up to two weeks before they are required to be returned to school where they can be exchanged for new ones.

It is essential that every student has a library bag to ensure the safe transportation of library books between school and home. In previous years we have lost many valuable books to damage whilst in transit between home and school. A library bag protects the books from drink bottle leaks, uneaten food scraps and dirty sports equipment! Please ensure your child has their library bag on their library day and that their name is clearly marked on it. Home reading with a changing variety of books is imperative to reading development!

The library will be open every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 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 or have a chat.

Term 1 Borrowing Limits

Early Stage 1 – two books each visit return weekly

Stage 1 – three books each visit return weekly

Stage 2 – four books each visit return fortnightly

Stage 3 – four books each visit return fortnightly

Reading at Home

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

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