Calling all scientists!

Have you heard about The Great NZ Science Project? Now’s your chance to get behind science and help New Zealand decide how we use it to invest in our future. Explore areas of interest and join the debate. The future of science in New Zealand is in your hands.

Important and leading NZ scientists have teamed up with our best free-thinkers -you guys, to figure out what science areas NZ should be focusing and spending our money on.

There are lots of ideas and projects suggested in the areas of

In each of these areas you can find out about what’s happening, what could happen in the future and why it’s important for scientists to work in these areas. There are heaps of facts and videos to watch. The videos are really cool, I reckon you should watch them.

Then you get to vote and write your opinion on whether you support science developments in these areas, which areas you think are most important and, coolest of all, you get to tell the scientists what you think they should be working on.

If you have an idea for a project for NZ scientists you can suggest it and you never know, an awesome scientist out there might think it’s a good idea and start working on it -Cool!

 

The Great NZ Science Project is on Facebook and Twitter for you to like, follow, post and comment.

Hunting the Cool

Imagine being a Coolhunter.

Coolhunters is a massive online space where you will find all the coolest things on earth. If you become a Coolhunter you can be sent to far-flung corners of the globe hunting out all that is cool. Coolhunters find everything from shoes to technology, even before it reaches our shelves, and by reporting it on their website influence what we eat, wear, listen to, watch and buy.

Mac Slater has just crashed the latest prototype of his flying bike and because of this has come to the attention of the creators of Coolhunters who offer him a trial.  Has Mac got what it takes to hunt out all the coolest things on earth and become a Coolhunter!

Ever wondered who’d win in a battle between Percy Jackson and Harry Potter?

How about between the BFG and Owly?

The Year 5&6 kids at Russell Street School in Palmerston North have asked these questions; and they’ve written down what they think could happen if these characters ever met and had to battle it out. You can read all about it here.

The battles are:

Hermione vs Matilda

Zac Powers vs Nancy Drew

Percy Jackson vs Harry Potter

BFG vs Owly

You can vote for your favourite character.  How cool is this?

NZ authors’ FABO story

fabo story

Nine great New Zealand authors are currently writing a fabostory online. The name comes from FAce BOok, but Fabo is also a slang word for fabulous which this is too.

If you have enjoyed stories by Fleur Beale, Brian Faulkner, Maureen Crisp and Fifi Colston and other great New Zealand writers you might want to check this out.

The story starts here with Kyle Mewburn’s first chapter. Then each author writes a chapter in turn. They invite you to write a chapter too – you could win prizes and even have your story published online!

Lego Fun

Did you know that since Lego was invented they have made about 400 billion bricks? If they were divided up evenly everybody in the world would get 62 bricks each and if you built a  tower out of 40 billion lego bricks you would be able to reach the moon. I also read that if you have six standard lego bricks (the ones with eight studs on top) there are about 915 million ways you can put them together. Would anyone like to work out the maths to prove that fact?

 

You might like to check out the Lego games site.  There are some fun games to play and you can try building their creation or have a go at creating your own.  I had a go at building a horse, – see what you can do.

 

You also might like to take a look at all the great books the library has on lego. There are story books as well as fact, so get building and reading.

New Non-Fiction for February!

Want to learn more about stuff? This month in the library we’ve got books about time and how people have measured it in history (The Time Book), words and the English language (The word snoop), the best way to make people laugh (Funny business), some more disgusting facts and trivia (Why does ear wax taste so gross?), and how does the internet work anyway (How did that get to my house? Internet)?

 

For more new non-fiction arrivals have a look at the My Library Children’s Non-Fiction page.

Stories to listen to!

I love listening to a good story! There are many ways to listen: cassette tape, CD, IPOD. You can even listen to video story-times on the internet! You probably already know about our library’s online story-time, but did you know that the Screen Actor’s Guild of America have produced an online story-time too? Stories on the Story Online website are read by famous actors. For example, Lord of The Rings stars Elijah Wood and Sean Austin both read a story. How cool is that?!

Yay for Harry

Are you potty about Harry Potter? We can’t wait for the release of the new movie next week… so we went searching our archives for inspiration. You can test your HP knowledge and keep busy with fun activities over the school holidays…

 

Check out our Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling books & links on the Kids Catalog Web:
Don’t forget – to see the websites just click on the spider web. Have fun with the crafts, quizzes and crosswords!

 

One of our favourite sites is the BBC which has the latest news on the film and info on the Harry Potter actors. And guess who has swine flu?!

Paint Like Monet!

Have you been to the Monet exhibition at Te Papa yet? I’m going tomorrow. There are some amazing paintings there at the moment. Don’t wait! The exhibition finishes on the 17th of May. Check out the Te Papa website for information.

 

If you’re really into art but you don’t have a lot of time (or any paint!) you could have a go at painting like Monet on the Te Papa site. It’s really fun – you can pick one of your own photos and then convert it to an impressionist-looking artwork. Give it a go!

 

Finally, if you’re after information on Monet and other impressionists check out our library catalogue for heaps of books:

Find out about art history

Read about paintings

Check out books on how to paint

Read books about famous artists (and also New Zealand artists)

And much more!

 

(Thanks to Magalie for the paint like Monet link.)