Monday, February 26, marks the end of Pennekamp's Literacy Celebration 2018. A big round of applause for Jiyeon and Julie, co-chairs of the event, and thanks to the Pennekamp PTA for funding and other support. The Read-a-thon logs are due by March 1 (that's this Thursday). Congratulations to all the participants in the Super Literacy Quiz Bowl! Everyone was awesome, showing not only extensive knowledge of the selected books but also teamwork, grace under pressure, and sportsmanship. The winning teams' classes received their ice cream on the Friday before break.

This week looks to be a quieter, more typical week. The theme for books on display and for the readalouds is community--how important it is and how to create it. Grades 4 and 5 are hearing Maybe Something Beautiful, by F. Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell, for which there's a nice little book trailer below. This week's focus is a lead-in to next week's visits with Manhattan Beach Rotary Club members who will be reading to grades K, 1, 2, and the deaf and hard-of-hearing class. Also visiting next week are children's librarians from the Manhattan Beach Public Library (the heart of the community, in my opinion), who will be distributing special student library cards to all our 3rd-graders. Community service is an important part of Pennekamp. We will be recognizing our successful food drive for the L.A. Regional Food Bank (remember the 1,010 pounds of food we collected a couple of months ago?) with free popsicles on Friday, March 9. At this time we should also have a ballpark figure for our current service project: Pennies for Patients, a fundraiser for leukemia research. 

Monday, February 26, the book club for 5th grade meets in the library. We are discussing Under the Egg, by Laura Marx Fitzgerald. The plot involves a (fictional) painting that was hidden by the Nazis in the (real) Altaussee salt mine, pictured below. In addition to being a captivating mystery, Under the Egg delivers a bit of Renaissance art history and information about World War II, especially the efforts of the "Monuments Men" to recover stolen artworks. The book is a little edgy in parts, though, so I'd recommend it for grade 5 and up.  

Pennekamp is in the midst of our Literacy Celebration, which continues until February 26.

We had such terrific author visits last week from Seth Fishman, author of A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars, and Lisa McMann, of The Unwanteds and the new Unwanteds Quests series (which coincidentally is all about dragons!). Both presenters were fun and interesting and so generous with their time. Their books can be purchased from Pages: A Bookstore (which was very helpful in setting up the visits) or wherever you like to buy books.

The Super Literacy Quiz Bowl is happening this week! This is a fun, optional activity for students in grades 3, 4, and 5. The 3rd-grade classes played this morning, and the winning team was Mrs. Vavao's class! Grades 4 and 5 will play this Thursday, February 15.

For many students the Read-a-thon is the best part of PK's literacy celebration. The reading logs for each of the three upcoming weeks are below. This year fiction and nonfiction minutes are valued the same (nonfiction is not doubled this year). The reading logs are due after the February break. Maybe we should start calling it "reading week" instead of "ski week"! PDFs of the reading log sheets are below my February 5 blog post or here.

Last week voting concluded for grades 3, 4, and 5 on the nominees for the California Young Reader Medal. The winner here at PK by very significant margin was Barbed Wire Baseball, written by Marissa Moss and illustrated by Yuko Shimizu. It won every class in all three grades. Voting this week will be grades TK, K, 1, 2, and the deaf and hard-of-hearing class. The statewide winners will be announced on May 1, 2018. Grades 3, 4, and 5 are hearing pleasant readalouds related to some of the many holidays and cultural events that are in February--Valentines Day, Chinese (lunar) New Year, and Presidents Day.

Back to the topic of winners, the American Library Association Youth Media Awards were announced this morning! The Newbery Medal and Caldecott Medal are the most well known of these, but there are many different awards and "honor" books (runners up) in all categories. The winner of the Newbery Medal was Hello, Universe, by Erin Entrada Kelly (which was a 5th-grade book club selection last year). The Caldecott Medal went to Wolf in the Snow, illustrated and written by Matthew Cordell. 

The book club for 5th grade will meet on the Monday after our February break--that is February 26, in the library at lunch recess. Our chosen book is Under the Egg, by Laura Marx Fitzgerald. Copies were reserved for us at the Manhattan Beach Public Library but may be all checked out, so call 310-545-8595.