Some 'Days' to celebrate

March 3rd is World Maths Day, is a chance to put your skills to the test, practice math skills and to get involved in a worldwide event that celebrates the history of maths.  This is a competition run through Mathletics. 

https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/world-maths-day/

March 20th is World Story Telling Day, where you can celebrate the art of oral storytelling.  It's also a day for people around the globe to listen to, and tell stories in as many different languages as possible.  Most of us go through the day engaging in oral storytelling without even realising that we are doing so.  Have you made up a bedtime story for your child?  Told a friend about your most embarrassing moment? or retold a childhood memory with a sibling?  These are all oral storytelling examples. 

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/world-storytelling-day-march-20/

World Poetry Day is 21st March.  This is a day to encourage people to read, write, teach and publish poetry, and to recognise the amazing cultural contribution poetry makes to the human society.  Poetry is another form of story telling, and has been used for centuries to pass along knowledge, history and information.  The ancient Bards travelled around the countries, taking their stories, in verse format, to share.

https://observances.global/world-poetry-day/

(Oh, and February 14th is Library Lovers Day - just saying!)   😉

Welcome back to Term 2

Welcome back to our own little patch of Paradise - looking forward to working together once again over the next 10 weeks.

Here in the Library, we have started back with computer problems - or rather, Virtua problems.  The school changed ISP providers over the break, and that has caused a hiccup with the Library management system, which is run from Darwin.  It is still out, despite all Kate's hard work in trying to get it running again and we are now waiting for the technicians in Darwin to make it behave as it should.  

I know it is a nuisance but please have patience.  I currently have 6 pages of hand written notes and 3 piles of returned books I can't do anything with till the system is back up.  I am no happier than anyone else, I can assure you.

Just for general thought if anyone can use it - April is Poetry Month and May is Reading Month.  Scholastic is running a 'Read more in May' competition which could be worth tapping into.  If you are interested, please see me. 

Also a general reminder that if there is anything that you think I can help you with, please come and talk to me.  I can cover a wide area of crazy bits of probably useless knowledge and I like challenges; (Translation; works well for coffee or chocolate.)

That's all Folks.  Now carry on being awesome!

Poem in Your Pocket Day

Coming up on the 24th April is 'Poem in your Pocket' Day.  This is a US based day and is part of National Poetry Month but could be something to get students involved with poetry and words, even in a small way.  Check out the link below.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5643

Another festival involving poetry - and Australian this time - is the Ipswich Poetry feast.  The link is below for this one.

http://www.ipswichpoetryfeast.com.au/

The Ipswich Poetry Feast is an initiative of Ipswich City Council, supported by the local community.
Since its humble beginnings in 2003 as a national poetry writing competition, the Ipswich Poetry Feast has grown and evolved to become in important part of Ipswich's cultural identity. The Ipswich Poetry Feast now features an annual international poetry writing competition and other significant literary events aimed at developing, advancing and showcasing poetry and poetry writing skills across all ages.  The competition covers all levels and has prizes to be won, so maybe something our students would be interested in having a go at.

Hoping you all had a nice relaxing time over the mid-semester break and are planning more of the same for the Easter break.  Not sure mine could be called relaxing as I was one of the First Aiders at a Guide Camp for about 100 girls in Alice Springs with very unseasonal pouring rain for most of it.  I am not looking for sympathy however, and the girls had a ball, aside from goanna bites (!) so all was good.

Enjoy your Easter break and make sure you get some of that work/life balance happening.

Library Lovers Day & Banjo Paterson

Just out of interest - you may like to know that February 17th will be the 150th birthday of 'Banjo' Paterson, one of our best-loved bush poets.  As our new curriculum seems to have more of a focus on poetry it may be a day to introduce our students to some of his works.

Friday is Library Lovers Day (and Valentine's Day) and here in the Library we are pleased to be able to facilitate some meetings between books and readers in the hopes of seeing romance bloom.

We are organising Blind Dates with books.  We have lots of mysterious wrapped up parcels of eager books just waiting to be borrowed and enjoyed.  These will be on display on Friday and can be borrowed all day.  There are lots of Fiction, along with some Non-Fiction books that wanted to get in on the action as well.  All sorts of genres and information.
So come in and give it a try - what have you got to lose? 

Just for general information and pre-planning there are a number of days throughout the year that promote READING.  Some of these are;

World Read Aloud Day                           March 5th
National Simultaneous Storytime        May 21st
Indigenous Literacy Day                        September 3rd
Picture Book Month                                November

The last one is probably my favourite - love those picture books!!  So if you have any ideas of things we could do to celebrate those dates, come and see me.

I am looking for people to write brief book reviews on books they have read and enjoyed from here, so if any of your students are interested, that would be wonderful.

Have an awesome week everyone!

Poem in your Pocket Day

Poem in a Pocket day was on Thursday 1st September here at Barkly College  - and staff and students were challenged to write or read a poem on any topic of their choice. 

Below is an entry from the Year 11 pathways group about our main street at night.  Great work year 11s!

TENNANT CREEK mainstreet

Where in the middle of Tennant Creek is where them heart is people walking from that end of the street to the other end of the street cars driving from South to East North to West

  

Smells of Spinifex burning smoke Fireries running red and blue light people cooking feed when people spill grog anywhere around town fire burning in the distance and the smell of the smoke travelling through thin air 

Sounds

People fighting Dogs barking kids making noise drunk make noise when they walk pass hostel cars go pass trucks make noise having great time partying having disco singing songs playing band music playing loud and old cars passing by with big sounds, people cheering and shouting

  

When i walk down the street at night i see people fighting, screaming, singing, people driving around the street listening to music, trucks kids running around happy  

street lights glowing golden orange umbrellas staging friends talking warm. Dark skies with stars twitching stories of old stories.

I see new people coming in Tennant Creek from other places.

  

How do the people feel? sometimes the peoples feel sad and other times people feel happy homeless hungry sometimes happy sometimes people feel weak and tired 

  

How do you feel? worried, sad, lonely, scared for them warrungu men in their loud broken cars, scared sometimes boring feeling sorry for other kids wondering around the street sad sometimes happy bored 

Year 11 English Pathways

Leroy, Kelisha, Alisha, Jacinta, Magdaline and Natalia.