Gilgandra Shire Library News - July 26

Reading Passport Competition finishes this week!

Congratulations to the children who have already completed and returned their Reading Passports. We hope you have many more reading adventures. Our competition winds up this week - please bring your passports in soon so we can present you with your reward!

LEGO® Club

Last week at DFYM (Designs from your mind) LEGO® Club, our leader, Kristina, was cold and so asked the builders if they could build a scene where she would be warmed. Using a mini-fig to represent our cold librarian, the builders thought of ingenious ways to warm her up, including putting her in a bath in a volcano, having her run away from snakes and putting her in a warm and comfy swag that also caught fire!

The next challenge was the letter of the day, ‘v’, with builders given inspiration from our Bricktionary. There were many creative ideas including venomous vipers, vans, villains and vegetables. We finished our session with free time, with many builders discovering new three-in-one kits to build. Some people completed builds that they have been working on for many weeks. These complex builds are on display in the library. Come and have a look at them!

Tech Club

We love STEM at Gilgandra Shire Library!

We began the term with a new focus and some new participants. To introduce some fun technology, coding and robotics we played with our Sphero robots, testing them out and driving them around the library before beginning some challenges. First we built some brick arches to create a track.

We had a few practice drives before timing ourselves driving through all four arches; it was a lot trickier than anticipated and we learned that sometimes we need to sacrifice speed for accuracy.

We then used the ‘draw’ feature on the Sphero Edu app to play Pictionary; one person drew a shape on the app then the Sphero ‘drew’ the shape on the floor, with the others having to guess what shape was being make. We tried the game with shapes then letters of the alphabet; it was a fun game! Tech Club is now open to children aged eight years and over.

We will tinker, explore and create using a range of technology, including robotics, 3D printing and Turing Tumbles.

New books

The library regularly receives new books; this week, we have received some great page-turners for tweens and teens, including the “Spy School” series by Stuart Gibbs. Can a normal, average kid become a superstar secret agent? Maybe not, but it’ll be fun watching him try!

We have also received some great new adult thrillers, including the latest in the enthralling Alice Vega series by Louise Luna- “Hideout”, “Wild dogs”, a new rural thriller by Australian Michael Trant, and the latest in the Jane Tennison series by British crime writer Lynda La Plante, “Unholy Murder”.

In non-fiction, we have received Tom Tilley’s memoir “Speaking in tongues”, “Rachel” by Jeff McGill and “Ten steps to Nanette” by Hannah Gadsby. We hope you enjoy whatever you are reading this week!