Author Archives: Emma Jane (YSO)

School Holidays are fast approaching…

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…which means that it is time for the School Holiday brochure and all the wonderful activities and events that it contains.

You can collect a copy of the brochure here at the Library or from the Golden Grove Arts Centre and the Turramura Rec Centre or from HIVE 12-twentyfive.

You can also access an online copy on our website or on your smart-phone by scanning this QR-code:
qrcode

So much to do these holidays

Get ahead of the rush - book your places in the events soon!


There’s so much on offer for children and youth in the City of Tea Tree Gully these holidays – we hope to see you there!

Do you “like” your library yet?

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It’s been less than a month since we went ‘live’ on Facebook and already 136 people have confessed their ‘like’ for the Tea Tree Gully Library. Certainly makes us all feel very warm and fuzzy about the work that we do and the wonderful people who make use of the services we offer.

Looking ahead, we can see two significant milestones approaching rather quickly, much more quickly than we ever could have hoped – 150 and 200 ‘likes’ of our Facebook page. We plan to celebrate these milestones by rewarding the Facebook users who become the 150th and 200th people to ‘like’ us.

So isn’t it time you ‘liked’ your library? It’s a great way to stay in touch with what’s been, what is, and what will be happening at the Library, as well as links to events and information we think may be of interest to you.

Internet and pizza – the perfect holiday combination!

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Are you 13 to 16 years of age?
Need a break from your parents these holidays?
Looking for something to do on Thursday night?
Want two hours where you can Facebook, Minecraft, Twitter, Google+, and surf the Web while munching on pizza, listening to music, and drinking soft drinks?
Do we have a deal for you! 🙂
These school holidays, after the Library closes on a Thursday night, we’re running Internet Lock-ins for 13-16 year olds from 7pm-9pm.
NO CHARGE – all you need is your Library membership card.
Bookings essential: 8397 7333
Tell your friends.

A Fabulous Pink Boa + ASO’s Amazing String Quartet = Holiday Magic!

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Miss Lily’s Fabulous Pink Feather Boa, performed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s String Quartet, was an enchanting School Holiday event at the Library this week. Margaret Wild’s classic Australian picture book was brought to life in the Library’s Relaxed Reading Area through a lively narration by the Storyteller and an emotive music score on strings. The audience joined the little Last Potoroo on a journey of friendship and fun at Miss Lily’s Boarding House. Featuring many fabulous pink feather boas and a tango-dancing crocodile, the performance was a celebration of music and storytelling.

Two violins, a viola, a cello and an enthusiastic teller of tales.

The children were thoroughly engrossed in the story.

What will she do?

Oh no! Potoroo! What are you doing?

How far will a Potoroo go for a piece of boa?

The Potoroo regrets her rash action...

Youth Area Refresh Update!

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Our Youth Services Officer had a very good day on Wednesday (July 20th) with the arrival of the new furniture for our library’s Youth Area. Key pieces in the gradual refresh of this area have been placed in the newly expanded space – a raised study table with drafting chairs for four plus five modular lounge chairs for curling up on with a good book or to chat with friends.

Funky new furniture for the library

Need to study for exams? Try the new study table in the Youth Area.

Comfortable chairs for curling up.

Crash out on our couches with mates or for some quiet time with a book.

The new look, larger footprint, Youth Area!

A place to study, hang out, read, chill, and relax.

Messy fun for all…

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It’s the school holidays again and the theme for our Family Workshop was Fantastic Clay Menagerie. Both sessions were filled to capacity with parents, grandparents and kids all eager to have go at creating their own fantastic creatures and environments from clay and a wide assortment of craft materials.

After taking a few minutes to put their ideas on paper, participants were soon shaping clay into dinosaurs, mermaids, robots, birds, cute kittens, and much much more.

Two heads are better than one...

Planning for a two-headed dragon.

Come fly with me...

The idea becomes a reality.

Size isn't everthing.

Capturing the best side for its close-up.

A colourful creation

With a whisk of its tail, it will carry you away.

Spiders were popular

Clay pie, anyone?

Books and Babies – it’s never too early to start

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Is there a baby, toddler, or young child in your life?
Do you enjoy reading to/with them but aren’t sure which books to choose?
Would you like to learn more about your baby’s development and the best ways/times to introduce basic concepts like colours, shapes, or the alphabet?
Looking for some hints on using rhythm and movement?
This year’s Readers Festival at the Library has just the answer: Opening Doors to Early Literacy with Dr James Thomas.

Presenter at Tea Tree Gully Library's Readers Festival 2011

Dr James Thomas

 

James has 30 years teaching experience in the USA, completing postdoctoral work in early childhood. He developed the special early literacy programs whilst a children’s librarian in the Pacific Northwest area of USA.

 

 

 

There will be two sessions run on Saturday July 2.

In the first, Ready to read – learn about the six early reading skills, how they relate to brain development, and ways to integrate them into daily life.

In the second, The Young and the Restless: Activities and Ideas for Captivating and Communicating with Ones, you will learn how to introduce concepts like alphabet, counting, shapes, and colours; developing self-concept; choosing appropriate book titles; using rhythm, movement and songs in everyday events.

All participants need to bring a blanket and teddy bear and wear comfortable clothes for sitting on the floor.

Time: 1.00pm – 4.30pm
Venue: Community Learning Centre
Cost: Free
Bookings: 8397 7333

Video may have killed the radiostar…

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But it could help sell books to the NOW genereation.

Something is afoot on the Internet… books (or at least the people producing the books) are using a new tactic to get our attention and convince us to buy them – The Book Trailer!
Now, according to http://www.squidoo.com/booktrailers: Book trailers are …similar to movie trailers, in that they are designed to build interest in an upcoming or current novel… just like the trailer for a new movie. However, where the maker of a movie trailer has all the clips from the film to pick from to create their trailer. With a book trailer, the maker … has to convert written words into visual images…. and the challenge they face is that they need to convey a sense of what the book is about without giving anything away – and without really clearly defining what the characters look like, as most readers prefer to visualize what they are reading about as they imagine it themselves. Most book trailers run from one to three minutes. They can be anything from the author reading a passage from the book, to an elaborate mini-movie.

 
(Hush, Hush is available to borrow from both our Adult and Teen Fiction collections.)

Think you have what it takes to make a trailer for your favourite book? Know a creative teen who needs a new challege? Random House Publishing has the competition for you!

So come and borrow your favourite book, brush up on the details and get your creative juices flowing! And if you’re not sure where to start or what to do, why not have a look in the catalogue for some books to help you along?

It really is amazing what you can find on the Net

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Possibly one of the stranger items I’ve come across while wandering through the vastness that is the Internet would have to be this page on the Catawba County Government, North Carolina website.

Simply titled “Who’s In Jail?” it is quite literally a list of every person currently in prison in the county. Along with the list of their crimes, you can peruse the amount of their bail, their age, the date they were incarcerated, and their mugshot… even their address is available for public viewing.

As far as I’m aware, we don’t do that sort of thing here in Australia… however, we do make documentaries about our more unusual prison stories, like
“Jail birds: voices from the inside.”

Available in our DVD Collection, this 118min film, features the man who created the Choir of Hard Knocks, Jonathon Welch, as he goes inside an Australian women’s prison to try and form a new choir, offering possibilities of hope, inspiration and consolation through music to another section of our population that many of us would rather ignore.

Playing with Paper?

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To be honest, until we were looking for ideas for the Dec/Jan holiday programme, I’d never heard of 3D Papercraft. And then another member of the CYS team showed me the book “We Are Paper Toys” by Louis Bou, which features the work of a wide variety of artists, designers and other creative minds using paper to create amazing and unique 3D toys/models from paper.

Front Cover Image

The book that gave us the idea...

Google 3D Papercraft and you’ll get approx. 1,350,000 results – including recreations of people’s heads from photo images, tugboat models, iconic computer game characters, buildings… the list goes on. It seemed like a perfect choice for a workshop aimed at 13-18 year olds.

Of course, this meant that now I got to play with paper myself in order to create the examples that would go up around the library as advertising for the workshop. And what an experience that has been!

First I found out the hard way that you really need to be working with at least a large A4 pattern… cos A5 is toooooo small. Also, ordinary paper is just too flimsy, poor little guy can barely stand up.

Oh boy, was he a fiddly little beast to make...

For something so small, he sure took a lot of time and effort...

Working on Max also reminded me to have glue on hand at all times… he’s held together with sticky tape for the most part and it just doesn’t look as good.

My next efforts were on a slightly larger scale… Undead George and Werewolf Michael Jackson.

It was around Halloween... so there was a theme to my choices this time.

More lessons on what not to do when playing with paper...

With Undead George I discovered that printing the pattern out in greys doesn’t look very good and colouring in with texta only mildly improves things.
However, he did teach me that the simpler patterns are definitely the easiest ones to work with. (Not really a big surprise, that one.) And that scoring the fold lines before you start trying to make the model does, in fact, make things much easier!

Werewolf Michael Jackson was a very good lesson in why you can’t use a glue stick to make these awesome toys/models – it just doesn’t work. The glue doesn’t hold things together and takes too long to dry… very frustrating when working with something as intricate as this pattern turned out to be. So sticky tape came to the rescue again… until craft glue stepped in and saved the day entirely.

Cute little bunny...

This little bunny proved a challenge.

And finally, I took all the lessons that I learned from the previous three toys/models and had a go at “Nodder” …

Simple but adorable

Ta daaaaa!

and another simple pattern that creates this little guy:

Say hello to my little friends...
Come along to the workshop and see what you can make for yourself!

 

 

Craft glue may be fiddly and scoring fold lines may take time, but it is totally worth the time and effort for the end result.

So if you’re 13-18 and would like to have a go at making some 3D Papercraft models/toys of your own, we would love to see you at the workshop on January 20 from 3pm-4pm!
Make your bookings via the library.
All the equipment and 3D Papercraft patterns will be supplied.