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, 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. This photo is in the public domain because it was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties.
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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. Pennekamp's Literacy Celebration begins this week! This extra-special time (from February 5 to 26) is devoted to promoting literacy among our students. There are many exciting events taking place. A full list is on the flyer found right beneath this post (see PDF below). Of special note are the following: Seth Fishman school visit, Lisa McMann school visit, and the Super Literacy Quiz Bowl. On Monday, February 5, Pennekamp is pleased to welcome Seth Fishman author of A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars. Seth is doing assemblies and class visits with our students in TK, K, 1st, 2nd, and the DHH class. On Thursday, February 8, at 8:30 a.m., author Lisa McMann will present an assembly for students in grades 3, 4, and 5. Her hugely popular Unwanteds series continues in the spinoff series Unwanteds Quests, of which Dragon Caves and Dragon Bones are the first two volumes. Order forms for signed books are on this website. Online orders for signed copies can be placed on Pages website. Seth Fishman book orders were due February 2. Lisa McMann book orders are due Monday, February 5. The Super Literacy Quiz Bowl will take place during the week of February 12. This is a fun, optional activity for students in grades 3, 4, and 5. Signups are no longer being accepted, but participating students should keep reading! 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"! On display in the library this week are books about books and about being an author as well as about a dozen shiny new picture books. During library visits this week students in the younger grades will hear the last of the nominees for the California Young Reader Medal--If You Plant a Seed, by Kadir Nelson. Those grades will vote next week. Grades 3, 4, and 5 are voting this week, except for the students of Mrs. Rios and Ms. Hart, who got a bit ahead of the other clothes and voted last week. Those two classes are hearing Brother Hugo and the Bear, a picture book set in the Middle Ages, before the invention of the printing press made books more accessible. Books were precious items then, and although they can be manufactured affordably today, they are still precious. ![]()
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Barbara Siegemund-Broka, library resource specialist, maintains this blog to inform Pennekamp students and families about library news and related content. Any opinions expressed here are solely her own.
What's Ms. Barbara reading?How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell
Worth repeating:
His eyes are soft. “Do you know why I became a librarian?” I wait for him to tell me, because of course I don’t. “Dewey,” he says. “As in the decimal system.” I’m not sure if he’s joking or not, but he continues, “I like order. I like organization. The idea of all the information in the world, all organized, everything in its place—I like that idea.” He clears his throat. “But I’ve been doing this job for a long time. And the thing I’ve learned is that stories aren’t about order and organization. They’re about feelings. And the feelings don’t always make sense. See, stories are like …” He pauses, brow furrowing, then nods, satisfied in finding the right comparison: “Water. Like rain. We can hold them tight, but they always slip through our fingers.” I try to hide my shock. Joe doesn’t seem like the poetic type. His caterpillar eyebrows knit together. “That can be scary. But remember that water gives us life. It connects continents. It connects people. And in quiet moments, when the water’s still, sometimes we can see our own reflection.” --From When You Trap a Tiger, by Tae Heller, winner of the 2021 Newbery Medal Archives
August 2021
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