Category: SUMMER IN LIBRARIES

Posted on

Can you be an Art Activist?

To celebrate our Wild World Heroes Summer Reading Challenge, we have a competition for creative young people in the Falkirk area who want to stand up for their planet!

We want you to create some art that inspires others to care about nature and the world around them.

What should my entry be about?

Think of an environmental issue that you feel strongly about. For example:

  • An endangered animal
  • Plastic in the ocean
  • Littering in the countryside
  • Helping wildlife in your garden
  • Using less plastic

What format should my entry be in?

You could make:

  • A poster with a catchy title, your own artwork and some information
  • A one-page comic
  • A short video (no more than 3 minutes long)

What should I do with my entry when it’s finished?

Get a grown-up to help you get your entry to us.

Posters and comics: Your grown-up can email your entry to falkirklibraries@gmail.com or you can hand in the paper copy to your local library.

If you’re handing in a physical copy, make sure your name, age and contact details are on the back.

Videos: Email to falkirklibraries@gmail.com or upload to You Tube, Facebook, Vimeo etc. and send us the url link.

What information do you need about me?

  • Your name
  • Your age
  • Your school (if you’re changing school next year, please include that too)
  • Your parent/guardian’s email address and phone number

What will you do with my entry?

Our judging panel will pick their favourites and award some prizes. We’ll put as many of the entries as possible on our social media feeds.

Prizes

Yes, we have prizes for our favourite entries! For the first prize, you get to choose an animal from the WWF adoption list and we’ll adopt it for you for a year.

There are also runner up prizes of animal-friendly books and other goodies.

Find us on social media

Facebook @falkirklibraries

Instagram@ Falkirklibraries

Twitter @libfalkirk

Posted on

Summer Reading Challenge 2021

The Summer Reading Challenge is back in libraries for 2021.

Rev up your youngster’s reading and get them excited about the environment with Wild World Heroes which runs 19 June to 21 August.

Children will join six Wild World Heroes and their animal friends as they learn about threats to our natural world and find ways to help their home town of ‘Wilderville’.

The World Wildlife Fund  have teamed up with The Reading Agency and UK libraries for a Summer Reading Challenge that’s all about animals and the environment.

Young participants will collect rewards for reading and, when the Challenge is complete, they’ll be awarded a medal and free entry to Blair Drummond Safari Park!

For more info, check our ‘How it works’ page below and for more information and please read The Summer Reading Challenge Terms and Conditions.

Take part online

Children can take part in this summer’s Challenge at home too, at wildworldheroes.org.uk and unlock games and other digital rewards for their reading.

We have lots of other fun in store this summer. Watch this space for details.

Posted on

Summer Reading Challenge 2020

The Summer Reading Challenge is here! The fun is all happening online at the Summer Reading Challenge website. It does mean we’ll miss hearing all about the books you’ve been reading, but we hope the digital rewards will encourage you to read all summer long!

What is the Summer Reading Challenge?

Every summer kids across the UK read six library books and collect stickers, prizes and other great rewards.

This year we can’t meet in libraries or borrow library books. Instead, you can read any book you like, from anywhere at all. You can log your reading on the Summer Reading Challenge (we’ll call it SRC from now on) website.

How to start the Summer Reading Challenge

  • Head on over to sillysquad.org.uk
  • Create a profile, entering a username and an email address. Parents need to verify the email before you can take part. Mums and Dad: Full details about the parent passport here,
  • This year, you get to pick how many books you read. Usually it’s 6, but if you’re a big reader, you might want to set your goal a bit higher.
  • When you finish a book, add it to your profile and give it some stars and write a review. You’ll get an online badge, a game or maybe a video!
  • When you’ve finished the challenge, download the certificate.

What do I read?

One of the best bits of the SRC is choosing the books you’re going to read and it’s something we love helping you to do at the library.

Sadly, we can’t use books from the public library at the moment, because we’ve had to stay closed to keep everyone safe. But you can read or listen to a book from anywhere else. Maybe you can use books from your school library?

We’ve found a few places online where you can access ebooks and audiobooks for free.

More information here:

Info for parents

Info for teachers

Posted on

Free online books for kids

With the library closed, where do you go to get free children’s books? Here’s our round up the free book portals we’ve found online. If you know of anything we’ve missed, let us know.

We’ll add more resources as we find them.

Falkirk LIbraries free ebook and audiobook service

Our RB Digital offers quick access to books, audiobooks and magazines for adults and kids. Check out the titles by clicking the links below.

RB Digital is easily accessed in the app, available for Apple, Android and Kindle Fire. It keeps your ebooks, audiobooks and magazines in the one place.

How to register using the app:
⦁ Visit your app store and install RB Digital
⦁ When you open the app you’ll be given the choice to log in or register
⦁ Choose ‘Register now’
⦁ Pick your country and find ‘Falkirk Community Trust Ltd’ in the list
⦁ Enter your library card number and create an account as prompted on the screen
⦁ You’ll log in from now on with your username and password. 

If you’re not already a member of Falkirk LIbraries, you can get a temporary online membership by filling in this web form.

Falkirk Learning Resource Service ebooks and eAudiobooks

If you go to school in the Falkirk area that means you’ll have a school Glow account. That means you can use the Schools’ Learning Resource Service Borrowbox app! They have ebooks and audiobooks.

More audiobooks and stories online

Amazon Audible have given free access to a range of kids audiobooks during lockdown.

Storyline Online has story videos for children from nursery, through primary age. Take a look at the age recommendations, keeping in mind they are in American grade school format. For primary age you’re looking at grades 1-6.

Oxford Owl have range of their reading tree and phonics books for various ages

Amazon Kindle offers a range of free downloads for children ebooks:

Booktrust has storybooks to read online for younger readers

Help for children with dyslexia

Barrington Stoke produce super-readable fiction designed to support young readers with dyslexia.

Their parents page has book samples and they’ve produced a special Homeschooling Guide for Lockdown.

Reading rewards with the Summer Reading Challenge

Head to the Summer Reading Challenge website to log the books you’ve been reading and collect digital badges, videos and games on the way. More details in our Summer Reading Challenge post.