13 Aug 2013
Last week the Pambula Merimbula branch of the Country Women's Association (CWA) visited local schools with a generous gift for their libraries. Our school was one of the lucky schools they visited! CWA President Mrs Leech and Treasurer Mrs Jenkins arrived at the school with a $300 cheque for us to purchase library resources with.
Our Librarian, Mrs Green, was extremely excited and grateful to receive the generous donation, as were the Library Monitors who were excited to be presented the cheque with her.
The CWA generously donates to our school each year so that we can purchase resources for our library or buy other reading resources. We are very fortunate to have such wonderful community organisations supporting our school.
This year our school was also fortunate to receive a $1000 grant for our library from the Pambula branch of the Bendigo Bank. Our Bendigo Bank funding was granted to support us in purchasing more non-fiction (factual) texts for our library. It is fantastic that we can now purchase more fiction (story) books with our wonderful CWA donation.
It is the perfect time for purchasing fiction books, with the Australian Children's Book Council recently announcing their 2013 Book of The Year Short List in the lead up to Book Week. Jackie French, Alison Lester, Morris Gleitzman and many other well known authors have been recognised on the list together with some up and coming Australian writers. Our Library Monitors will be helping our Librarian choose some of the books from this list to be purchased, as well as choose from books displayed at the Book Week Book Fair that will be held by Booktique at our school.
Booktique will be holding a Book Fair in our Library on Tuesday August 27. It will be open from 11.30am to 2.30pm. On this day students and families will be able to purchase books before celebrating Book Week with a fancy dress Book Parade, where students will have the opportunity to dress up as their favourite book character or a planet, alien or space-themed character - as this year's Book Week theme is 'Read Across The Universe'.
Students love borrowing from our school library. Each child at our school has a weekly one-hour library lesson and borrowing time with their class. Many students borrow several times a week as our school library is also open before school and during lunch times. It is great to know that children still love reading books, even with the introduction of new technologies. Having such generous community donations to purchase books, in addition to the funding we receive from the Department of Education and Communities, ensures that we can continue to have a huge selection of interesting and engaging books that will continue to motivate children to read and ultimately improve their educational outcomes.
Parents, guests and community members are welcome to celebrate reading and Book Week with our school by attending the school's Book Week Parade, which will be held from 1pm to 2pm on August 27. No doubt the school will be showcasing some of our new books and thanking the CWA for them on the day.