Have you met our Early Learning Program Volunteer… Daisy?

Library Volunteer – Daisy.

Storytime, is an active and vocal session aimed at pre-schoolers who enjoy themselves with a mixture of picture book story reading, singing much loved rhymes and craft activities. Early Learning Program Volunteers assist on this program by preparing the children’s area and craft activities ready for the young people and facilitating the session. Daisy is an Early Learning Volunteer and shares her thoughts.

 

What do you like about volunteering at the Library?
In my role as a Storytime Volunteer I get to meet and interact with other people and especially the children, which I love.

Do you have a memorable moment you would like to share?
Every Storytime session brings pleasure to see the ‘littlies’ faces light up as they listen to stories and sing their favourite songs. I love to see that!

What has volunteering brought to your life?
I am a widow, my daughter lives in Victoria and my son and his family (two of three grandchildren and a great grandchild) live in Mount Gambier, so volunteering fills this gap in my life and provides me with a chance to meet people of all ages, not just ‘oldies’ like me!

The  Library  is celebrating National Volunteers Week 13th-19th May 2013. We have over 140 volunteers in the Library, across 9 different programs. To all of our volunteers we say, ‘thanks a million.’

Afternoon tea with the Mayor

You may remember our post about our Summer Reading Club program over the holidays. Participants up to eighteen years old were encouraged to read (or be read to) a minimum of 10 books over the summer school holidays.  The program aims to make reading fun and entertaining for everyone, particularly averse readers. The Library rewarded everyone who participated in the program by throwing a Grand Finale event on Wednesday 23 January. Over the school holidays we received 127 reading logs and 12 book reviews, covering an outstanding 1,282 books!

On Monday 18 February the top seven participants who submitted the most book logs or the most creative book reviews attended an afternoon tea with Mayor Miriam Smith.

Each finalist and their family received a $20 Nile book voucher, a Summer Reading Club pack and additional prizes before helping themselves to drinks and nibbles. Mayor Miriam Smith, along with the Library’s Children’s Services Officer Holly Marling, congratulated each finalist for continuing their journey into the magical world of books and participating in our program. The Mayor extended her recognition to the participants’ families for supporting their children’s development and fostering a passion for books, reading, literature and their public library.

The Summer Reading Club encourages children to continue reading and writing during the school holidays and to explore the amazing world of books. For more information about the Summer Reading Club please visit their website  and look out for our next Summer Reading Club Program during the December/January school holidays.

Tour Down Under – Bike art display

In the lead up to tomorrow’s Santos Tour Down Under, Bupa stage 4 starting from Civic Park, local families decorated some donated old bikes during a very successful School Holiday program.

 

The pictures tell it all, much fun was had kids and adults alike,  and the bikes are outside on display on the mound next to Civic Park today and tomorrow! If you plan on coming down for TDU, check out the kids’ work and also our cycling display in the Library foyer.

 

The TDU tomorrow starts with festivities from the crack of dawn at 5.30am, with the Bupa Challenge ride heading off at 6.30am. The official Tour leaves at 11.00am. It will be a great morning of entertainment and perfect weather on  Civic Park!

Pet Pals Family Workshop

The Pet Pals Family workshop was a fantastic school holiday session run in collaboration with Inspectors Gary and Kate and our Children’s and Youth Services team. The star of the show hands down was Reggie the most gorgeous Beagle in the City of Tea Tree Gully!

The session was very fun but most importantly informative; teaching children how to approach dogs, deal with stray aggressive dogs and how to care for pets.

‘Hands Across Our Community’ for Harmony Day

Harmony Day, on March 21, is a celebration of cultural diversity across Australia. It is a wonderful opportunity to understand and reflect on how Australians of many backgrounds live together, and make our democratic nation and our local community better places.

 ‘Play, Engage, Inspire’ is the key message for Harmony Day this year and we hope that everyone will find an activity to get involved in and inspire others to do the same.

The Library is running activities to celebrate Harmony Day from 13—20 March. Express your identity by creating a unique set of hands that can be displayed in the Library from Tuesday 13 March, or join us for special Harmony Day themed Storytime sessions on Monday 19, Tuesday 20 and Friday 23 March from 10:15 –11am.

No bookings are required and all children must be accompanied by an adult.

Summer Reading Club prizes

On Monday Feb 6th our Mayor Miriam Smith presented the winners of our Summer Reading Club prizes at an afternoon tea in the children’s area of the Library with our Library Manager Helen. The children won book vouchers and other goodies. Out of the 1710 books that were read by children from Tea Tree Gully Library, our winner Clarisse read 240 books. Her brother Andrew came in second reading 110 books and equal third place went to Brittany and Amber for reading 80 books each. Well done!

Helen, Brittany, Mayor Miriam Smith, Amber, Clarisse and Andrew.

As Dr Suess would say: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you’ll go.”

 

 

 

The Summer Reading Club ‘The Amazing Read’ Finale

Fifty-five children participated in the Summer Reading Club, reading at least ten books each. Some have read significantly more than that, with a combined total of over 1000 books read so far.

 

One girl has even created her own charity fundraiser reading project after being inspired by the program.

Forty-one attended the finale with their parents, with activities including making marshmallow snowmen, alfoil sculptures, races with cotton wool stuck to their noses with Vaseline, badgemaking, face painting and Splash Theatre’s Mr Badger telling stories from Wind in the Willows.

We gave out lots of prizes for best book review, best costume and raffle draws. Staff enjoyed dressing up as much as the children but the winner was our Little Emperor.

It was a great night, which the children and parents really enjoyed and appreciated.

Chinese New Year Fun

January 23rd will mark the start of the Year of the Dragon and here at the library we’re getting pretty excited about it. To get into the Chinese New Year spirit we’ve hung lots of lanterns and there might even be some dragons around over the next couple of weeks.

If you’re after some school holiday fun, why not come and help us celebrate the New Year with the Chinese New Year Storytime on Monday 16, Tuesday 17, and Friday 20 January from 10:15am to 11:00am. Join our Library family in a session of enchanting stories, songs, activities and rhymes. Create your own Chinese Lantern to take home.

Start the year with a roar and let your imagination run free! Join in the Design-a-Dragon Workshop and create your own colourful dragon to take home. The workshop is on Wednesday 11 January from 10:30am to 11:30am. Bookings essential. For booking details check out the School Holiday brochure.

For the adults, qualified Tai Chi instructor Brenda Hum will be providing two free Tai Chi sessions, one on Monday 23rd at 11.00am and again on Tuesday 24th at 11.00am. Bookings are essential for these as well.

 

Giggly Kids Christmas Musical Performance

Lots of little people loved the performance in the library on Tuesday by Giggly Kids. They rocked our world! We will have a copy of their CD ‘Ready Set Giggle’ in our collection soon.

For more school holiday fun, grab a brochure from the Library or our website.

Helping hands make a Christmas tree

The festive season is here once more and the Children’s and Youth Services Team have been busy spreading Christmas cheer to local primary school students with Christmas Storytelling workshops here in the library.  At the workshops students heard some wonderful Christmas-themed stories and sang a few well-known Christmas songs. They also joined in fun activities, such as tracing their hands onto green paper to add leaves to our giant Christmas tree (it’s a handsome affair) and making a shooting star ornament to take home.