Kids Blog

Ever seen Stu play the ukeulele at Stories @7?  Ever wondered how to play one? Ever wanted to learn? We have two cool new books: Starting ukulele and Uke’n play ukulele for kids! Both books come with a play-along-CD to help. They are great. I’m going to try learn from them! Come in and borrow them.

For all you would be chefs out there. Check out the Cookbook for Boys. From chilli to chocolate chunk muffins, to tasty things on toast, this cookbook tells you how to make all the food you really want to eat. Yum!

Last week in Hastings was Horse of the Year time, when heaps of people (and horses and ponies) get the chance to compete against the best in New Zealand (and Australia and other places) to find out which horses and ponies are the most beautiful, most athletic, most gymnastic, most obedient, most fabulous. There were horses of all shapes and sizes there – maybe you know someone who competed.

You can visit the website here, for information and results to find out who really was the horse of the year. Just a couple of interesting facts: if you’re into showjumping, the horse of the year turned out to be Australian. Maybe next year. If you like dressage then you’ll be interested to know that the winner of the major Grand Prix competition was a 22 year old stallion. That’s a seriously old horse!

If you love horses there are heaps of books and things in the library to choose from. For books about riding check out this Kids’ Catalogue link, or for general horse books check out this link. Oh, and if you know the real difference between a horse and a pony make sure you let us know!

I came across this really cool book where the swimmer on the page actually moves to swim! It has all these characters performing actions like twirling, dribbling and even doing cartwheels! It really is a feast for the eyes. The book is called Swing! by Rufus Butler Seder and its a Scanimation picture book. Check the book out and see what I mean. I’m sure you are going to enjoy it as much as I did.

If you are in to making stuff then check out D.I.Y for Kids. You can bind your own books, make your own clothes, make stickers, logos, clothespin dolls, box building, graffiti furniture and heaps of other cool stuff. There are step by step instructions and photographs of designs that kids have made themselves. A great book for filling in all that spare time.

Hey guys! In honour of Earth Hour, our libraries will be giving light bulbs to customers who borrow items from Wednesday 25 to Saturday 28 March, courtesy of Energy Mad. Tell mum and dad to come and get some books with you and get a light bulb! Remember to turn your lights off for Earth Hour this Saturday.

Hi guys!

Do you often need info about New Zealand animals for your school homework sheets & projects? Then Kids Catalog Web can help! Navigate to the Explore section and choose NZ Aotearoa / NZ Animals. To see all the fantastic web pages on your chosen topic, click on the button of the animal you want. As this is a book catalog, it will usually come up with a list of books on that topic first. Just look for an icon with a spider sitting on a web (it’s on the left hand side of page and has the words see web pages) and click on that for the URLs.

Here’s some examples of the kinds of websites that you will find there…
Animal fact sheets:
New Zealand zoos have fact sheets on the animals that live there. Here’s the Hamilton Zoo site: Just click on Birds, Reptiles or Mammals and choose the fact sheet for the animal you want.

Animal Pests:
Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand is getting more and more stuff added all the time. In “The Bush” section you can check out all our native animals & insects plus their predators. But this section in Conservation is all about the Introduced Animal Pests which threaten our native wildlife.

 
Penguins:
There’s loads of info about our unique and endangered animals too like the Little Blue Penguin. The Oamaru Penguin Colony website has some great facts plus their life cycle.

 
Sharks: If you don’t mind the sight of blood – check out this site from the Auckland Museum about dissecting a Great White Shark.

The crafting of Narnia by Weta Workshop is a brilliant book! So brilliant in fact that it has been nominated for a NZ Post Children’s Book Award! This is about the whole creative process behind the Narnia film. The pictures in it are amazing! Make sure you vote for your favourite book!

If you love Peanuts cartoon strips then you’ll be very pleased to hear that you can view all the Peanuts cartoons ever on this website! Check it out!

Join us on Saturday March 21, 2009 from 11:00am – 12:00pm at the Johnsonville library. Come dressed in your national costume and make Earth people out of clay and listen to stories and have fun.