Living Room of the City Primed for Full House

Palmerston North’s Central Library is preparing to become a battleground, go a little berserk and host a whole new crowd at Tea and Tales.

It’s all in the name of providing all-day workshops for children during the April school holidays.

“The workshops are in response to feedback from both parents and children for longer school holiday programmes, rather than just a couple of hours at most,” Palmerston North City Library Programmes Team Leader Elise Goodge says.

“There’s a captive audience looking for things to do in the holidays and if parents are working they aren’t able to take their children to the library. We’re thrilled two of the three workshops are already full and expect the writing one will be fully subscribed too.”

The workshops are for children eight and above. They each run from 9am to 5pm with drop off from 8.30am.

Preparation Academy participants will be set for May the 4th. On Wednesday 18 April they will design and construct their own light-up weapon and learn how to wield it. They will then stage a battle scene that will be filmed.

At Berserk Circuits on Tuesday 24 April children will learn to build some simple electronics circuits, bust out the resident library robots and learn how to solder a light-up badge for them to keep.

The Great, Grand Story Experiment on Thursday 26 April will be a day of ridiculous and serious writing craziness. Participants will learn storytelling techniques then share their stories with library visitors at the regular Tea and Tales.

Each workshop is limited to 12 children and costs $15. “We hoped the workshops would meet the community need of something to do in the holidays and given how popular they are, it appears we have succeeded,” Ms Goodge says

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The Central Library is considering dedicating one week of the July school holidays to registration-required programmes and another week to drop-in programmes.

“We are always keen to hear community suggestions and feedback about our programmes,” she says.

Shorter programmes are also offered at all libraries during the April school holidays including Minecraft, poetry writing, tween movie time and Lego challenges, plus entertainer extraordinaire Deano Yipadee.

ENDS

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