Children's Gallery

DID YOU KNOW THAT WE HAVE OUR OWN HERITAGE COLOURING SHEET?

This is what it looks like when the artist coloured it!

October School Holidays

Ahh holidays, over much to quickly! We had a great time these holidays. Our special activities were:

Stuffed Animal Sleepover Storytime - not JUST a tongue-twister. We asked out Storytime friends to bring their favourite stuffed toy to have a sleepover in the library. They got up to so much mischief.

Out of this world space craft - We iced some biscuits so they looked like planets. Not as realistic as hoped but gosh they tasted good. We then made a planetary mobile.

Most fun of all, this giant blow-up blueberry!

Seriously, we had a great time watching films in the Planetarium dome.

July School Holidays

School holidays rule! Seriously, we do enjoy seeing more of our school aged friends. Our three special activities were:

Street Sense show, Llynda taught us about how to travel safely and amazed us with some outstanding juggling.

Mexican Arty Party, Abigail taught us to access our inner 'Frieda' and the guacamole and salsa tasted great too!

Hip Hop Flashmob, Shyamla taught us how to groove separately and together.

Book Week 2019

The older I get the more convinced I am that reading is vital. So many doors are open to competent readers. As we move into the digital world and services shift online being a capable reader is more important than ever.

What does being a capable or competent reader mean? It's about making sense of the written word and critically thinking about what you read.

But reading should be fun too. Reading can feed our imaginations, entertain and amuse us.

So reading is not my secret power. It is my POWER!

Here at Camden Libraries we love Book Week. It's a chance for us to celebrate all things literacy. We are looking forward to celebrating the importance of books and reading all week with you.

Events
Monday 19 Aug
Storytime @ Narellan & character parade 11AM

Tuesday 20 Aug
Storytime @ Camden & character parade 11AM
Night-Time Storytime @ Oran Park 6:00PM

Wednesday 21 Aug
Staff costume day
Storytime @ Narellan & character parade 11AM
Storytime @ Oran Park & Character parade 11AM

Thursday 22 Aug
Storytime @ Camden & character parade 11AM
Night-Time Storytime @ Narellan 5:30PM

Friday 23 Aug
Storytime @ Narellan & character parade 11AM

All Week
Superhero Name Poster Activity

COMPUTER CODING FOR YOUNG CHILDREN

I posted about coding for young children a couple of years ago. At the time I suggested some online resources, some of which have gone the way of the dodo and longer exist. I remain convinced that:

Coding is about creating & being creative so is very much the domain of early-childhood.
Coding is a new type of literacy. Coding can help you to organise your thoughts & express your ideas.
Children shouldn't just be learning how to code, they should be coding to learn.

Camden Libraries have invested in an electronic resource to help parents introduce coding to their children.

The resource is BusyCode (Click here) BusyCode is a fun introduction to computer programming for children 5 and up where children learn to create, run & debug simple computer programs.

Hygeine at our programs

We take the health and hygeine of our youngest visitors very seriously. There are a few routines we follow to stop the possible spread of germs...

We use antiseptic wipes to clean all instruments and shakers after every use. We choose wipes that kill 99.9% of germs AND are advertised as safe enough to use on faces and hands.
We hand-wash and dry our dancing scarves in dishwashing liquid regularly.
We wipe-over the covers of our board books regularly.

Also, the main presenters are offered flu and whooping cough vaccinations each year.

We ask that you help us by:

Keeping sick children at home
Taking a break from programs if you are sick
Cleaning up any anything that comes out of you or your baby! Ask us for wipes or tissues if you need them.

Like, totally totes

We have such a wealth of talent in our area! With some basic materials and instruction from our favourite artist Abigail we set out to make a bag that was useful AND beautiful.

Look out for our creations being carried proudly by our budding artists!

School Holiday January 2018

Hasn't the weather been weird? Escape the heat, rain, wind, storms and whatever else Mother Nature wants to throw at us at the library this Summer.

As always there are heaps of books, movies, TV shows & CD's to take home. We have our Summer Reading Club where you can win cool prizes for spending time reading.

At Narellan Library we have craft & colouring every day of the holidays, our popular in-door play space & for the first time a library mystery to complete. Can you work out what happened to 'poor Roger'?

We also have an exciting program of workshops & shows. Have a look at our flyer for more details. Bookings open Monday January 8 at 9:30AM. Get in fast, tickets usually go VERY fast!

Christmas Festivities 2017

Our Christmas (and final) Storytimes & BiBs have finished. We will resume from Monday 15 January 2018.

It is wonderful to be in-front of a couple of weeks to plan & prapre for next year. However, It is always tinged with a certain level of sadness.

One, is that I won't get a chance to sing & dance for a receptive audience. My co-workers are more inclined to 'shush' me than join-in! I will have to deal with fewer cuddles and less love also.

Two, many of 'my children' will be going off to school next year & I won't get to see them as often and when they come back in they are quite literally different people who are all grown up and sophisticated.

But its not all about me *I try to remember* So best of luck to our 'graduates', a Merry Christmas to all & see you in 2018.

Here are couple of photos from our last week

PAINT THE TOWN READ CAMDEN CHRISTMAS WISH LIST

Sick of all the plastic toys that enter your house at Christmas time? How about asking for the gift of attachment, brain development & plain-old good times? Recent studies have determined that reading books with your children achieves all three goals. Reading builds solid and warm attachment between children & their caregivers, it actually changes children's brains by fast-tracking the shedding of ineffective neural pathways & building new linkages in the brain and is FUN.

I've attached a list of books that would make excellent Christmas gifts. You could also tick the ones you want and pass the list to any well-meaning relatives who might be inclined to deluge you with toys, toys, toys!

Christmas Wish List

SUMMER READING CLUB

The Summer Reading Club has opened! The Club offers a great opportunity to encourage children to keep reading over the school holidays. Children who read receive incentives including badges, wristbands, pens, pencils, magic towels and the possibility of a major prize voucher to keep them interested and motivated. Join now at eith Camden or Narellan Libraries.

20 AWESOME BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

We can't ignore it any longer.. Soon it will be...Christmas! In my family we always go with 1. Something to play with 2. Something to wear & 3. Something to read.

Here are some suggestions for books that *fingers crossed* your children will love! each has stood the test of time & in the main you would do well with any of the books written by these top-notch authors.

Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak
Magic beach by Alison Lester
Green eggs & ham by Dr. Seuss
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
The very hungry caterpiller by Eric Carle
The rainbow fish by Marcus Pfister
Curious George H A Rey
Matlida by Roald Dahl
The tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Alexander & the terrible, horrible, no good. very bad day - Judith Viorst
The wind in the willows by Kenneth Graeme
Gorilla by Anthony Browne
The going to bed book by Sandra Boynton
Diary of a wombat by Jackie French
Guess how much I love you by Sam McBratney
Animalia By Graeme Base
Where is the green sheep by Mem Fox
Pig the pug by Aaron Blabey
Ten little fingers and ten little toes by Mem Fox
Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

COMPUTER CODING FOR YOUNG CHILDREN

I have been asked a couple of times recently about offering workshops for pre-schoolers in computer coding. My first thought was 'are you crazy' how would it be possible! However, I am coming around. I have been doing some research and I have found the following thoughts interesting:

Coding is about creating & being creative. It is then very much the domain of early-childhood.
Coding is a new type of literacy. Coding can help you to organise your thoughts & express your ideas in the same way as writing. Maybe the early adopters of using the written word felt the same way ie bewildered & confused as we do about coding!
Children shouldn't just be learning how to code, they should be coding to learn.

What is important is that we consider the most appropriate way to introduce and encourage coding and coding thinking in this young age group. However, this is the way we introduce any new subject so it really isn't as scary as I first thought!

If you are happy to hand off your phone or tablet you could download one of these apps. Most have free trials so you can see if it suits. These are three that come recommended from several reputable sources.

Kodable

Light Bot

Scratch JR

You could also visit 'Mama Codes' http://mama.codes/ which has a variety of coding activities for children 3-7 years.

We have the 'Hello Ruby' Adventures in coding book which teaches the concepts of coding in a fun way for very young children. It has been popular so we will be buying more copies.

Stay tuned for more coding information & activities in the near future!

Hand-On First Aid Workshop - Day Two

Once again...a big thank you to Michelle Healey from Hands-On First Aid for presenting our workshops.

Knowing what to do if you are called upon to be a first-responder is so vital. We hope our workshops have helped children to be confident if they are ever called upon to be a lifesaver.

Click on this link to see some of the children practicing their CPR skills https://youtu.be/pEzE4EfzV7I

GRANDPARENTS DAY

Friday 27 October 2017 10:00AM-1:00PM

Oran Park Town Park, Central Avenue, opposite Camden Council Administration Building

Grab your Nanna's & Pa's and join us for a morning of fun! We are celebrating the important contribution older people make to our families and community. There will be free activities including performers, workshops, fitness sessions & garden games.

The library will have our 'Books Unbound' tent with stories, colouring & technology displays all morning. See you there!

Hand-On First Aid Workshop - Day One

First of all a big thank you to Michelle Healey from Hands-On First Aid for presenting our workshops.

We think it is very important for children to have a basic knowledge of what to do in an emergency. So we were deligted to be able to offer four free First Aid workshops for children these holidays.

Michelle went through how to how to identify an emergency, who and how-to call for help & ways to offer assistance during an emergency including offering CPR.

Click on this link to see some of the children practicing their CPR skills http://youtu.be/95s-UUgyvBI

SEP/OCT SCHOOL HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES

As well as a fantastic range of workshops including First Aid, Science, Coding and catooning we have fun drop-in activities at the library throughout the holidays.

At Narellen we have fun scavenger hunts with teeny-tiny delicious rewards! We also have colouring for our smallest friends & some fun games on our bay-end panels.

Camden & Narellan both have new challenging riddles every day of the week. See staff if you MUST know the answers & it just won't come. Of course we ALWAYS have books, DVD's and CD's to make the days fun & fast!

KID'S FUN DAY

We had a blast at Kid's Fun Day on Wednesday 13 September. We took our tent, faux grass & tech to Curry Reserve to show that our library is not just about books. We do still love books though!

It's not all sunshine and lollypops though. A lot of hard work goes into setting up. Here is slice-of-life video. Enjoy!

SCIENCE. TECHNOLOGY. ENGINEERING. ARTS. MATHEMATICS

STEAM is a happening buzz-term at the moment. Unlike most buzz-terminology it is actually important for us as parents.

STEAM is about linking Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics education to provide a deeper understanding of our world. Essentially, it is about future-proofing our children by provding them with the thinking & skills they will need to thrive in tomorrow's workplaces.

We will be unveiling a new STEAM inititive at the library in the near future...

Children's Book Week

Happy Book Week everyone! Our activities are in full swing & we have now presented our reader's theatre of Chip by Kylie Howarth twice so we're getting quite good at it!

We hope you will join us for fun on Wednesday & Friday at Narellan or on Thursday at Camden. Wear your favourite costume and parade with us.

Here are some photos from our reader's theatre at Camden. We had such fun!

Paint the Town REaD

Paint the town REaD is a whole community project to promote the importance of EVERYBODY speaking, listening & reading to EVERY child in the community. It takes a village to raise a reader!

The library has organised an activity and display to show how we help families to grow readers.

Every child who attends our programs in the next couple of weeks will be asked to write their name and a favourite book on a leaf. We will be sewing the leaves together and displaying them on our magic fairy tree.

Like a tree which is made up of many parts: leaves, wood, bugs and bark. Children become readers word by word, page by page and book by book.

Upcoming... Book Week 2017

Book Week is held yearly in August. The dates this year are 21-25 August. Our preparations have already started! Our displays are slowly coming together, we're rehearsing our 'performance' & started to plan our costumes.

We invite children attending Storytime to wear a costume & parade with us during Book Week.This website has some great ideas for quick, easy & cheap (which are all words we like) costumes

https://www.stayathomemum.com.au/my-kids/activities/costume-ideas-for-book-week/

DINOSAUR SCIENCE SHOW

A full-house of excited friends gathered to watch the Dinosaur Science Show this afternoon. A rollickingly good time was had by all! For those of you who missed it, here is a short video of the fun.

Pop Up Art Station

We have set up a pop up art station at Narellan Library these holidays. We're supplying different art materials each day. So far we've had watercolour pencils, silky crayons, textas & adaptable needs crayons. Still to come are hard pastels, charcoals & oil pastels.

We have been blown away by the colourful works & have decided to display them in the library. Why not come in and create your own masterpiece? Then come in again to see it on display!

Holiday Activities

Holidays have started and the library is starting to buzz with activity! Budding chefs strutted their stuff at our cooking classes making delicious Vietnamese rice paper rolls & dipping sauce.

Bubbles at BiBs

Did you know we have added bubbles to some of our BiBs sessions? The babies seem to love the colourful floating spheres!

Our young fans

It makes us very happy to see children enjoying our programmes! This lovely young lady enjoyed looking at the world in a different...more red...way!

National Simultaneous Storytime Wednesday 24 May 2017

Along with over half-a-million children across Australia our Storytime children at Narellan enjoyed 'The cow tripped over the moon' by Tony Wilson & Laura Wood. The National Simultaneous Storytime aims encourage more young Australians to read and enjoy books.

If you missed it you can view a reading by author Tony Wilson

We grabbed our craft idea from http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/space/morbit.htm and had a cow jumping over a paper plate which looked something like this...

We trialled our new instant camera with a few lovely volunteers. More experimentation is needed to get a clearer picture.

Mini-Builders May 2017

Our mini-builders are showing some fantastic building skills. They probably don't even realise that while they are having fun they are learning about colours, shapes, orientation-in-space, vocabulary, working cooperatively and giving their fine-motor skills a great workout! Mini-Builders is held at Camden Library on Tuesdays at 10AM. Please click here for more information