The Premier’s Reading Challenge will finish on Friday 30th August, so we are well over half way through! A number of students have already been to see me to let me know they have completed the Challenge. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if your child’s details have been misplaced or if you're having trouble entering their books into the system. Kindergarten students complete the challenge with their classroom teacher through the books that are read to them on a daily basis.

Children's Book Week

Children’s Book Week is the annual celebration of books for young people and the joy of reading. Each year across Australia, the CBCA (Children’s Book Council of Australia) brings children and books together celebrating CBCA Book Week. During this time, schools, libraries, booksellers, authors, illustrators and children celebrate Australian children's literature. The CBCA Book Week will be held from 16th-23rd August. This year’s theme is: Reading Is My Secret Power. The CBCA Book of the Year Awards Winner and Honour Books will be announced on Friday 16th August and CBCA Book Week commences the following day.

At St Philomena’s, we will hold our annual Scholastic Book Fair during Children’s Book Week . We also have our Book Week Parade and Books with Buddies day, as well as a number of activities in the library that students can participate in. Students will be looking at the CBCA Shortlisted books during their library lessons this term and trying to decide who they believe will win and why that book should win.

Written by @kylie_covark

We will be holding our annual Scholastic Book Fair from Monday 19th- Thursday 22nd August. The Learning Centre will be open each of those days from 8.30-9am, 1.15-1.45pm and 3.10-3.30pm. We are expecting quite a number of boxes again this year! There will be a fabulous selection for all age ranges including quite a number for our older readers! Prices range from around $4-$25 with quite a number being around $10-$15. We look forward to seeing you there!

A Scholastic Book Fair provides:

· The best range, hand selected from over 60 publishers worldwide

· Affordable books to suit every reading level and interest

· An opportunity for children to see, touch and connect with books they want to read

· An exciting event that engages children and promotes literacy

· Generous commissions — every book sold at the Fair earns free books for your school

· You are also able to donate books to the school if you would like.

Book Week Parade

A reminder that our annual Book Week Parade will be held on Wednesday 21st August (Week 5) at 9.15am in the hall. I hope students have started to think about what book character they might like to come dressed as! There is always a lot of excitement around this day and the students put in such an incredible effort into their outfits! Family and friends are very welcome to attend the Book Week Parade. Click on the link for some suggestions

https://www.familiesmagazine.com.au/childrens-book-week-costume-ideas/

St Philomena’s subscribes to World Book Online which is the online version of the well known World Book Encyclopedia series. The subscription is open to all students.

Our World Book subscription allows us to give you and your family access to this valuable reference source at your home computers 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. We hope that your whole family will use the World Book sites often to help with homework, special projects, at-home learning and information seeking. We are also trialing their eBook platform this year. I encourage you to have a look with your child/ ren as there are some amazing factual texts available to our students.

To access the World Book Web, follow these simple steps:

Go to www.worldbookonline.com

Enter Username: stpcs2400

Enter Password: stpcs2400

Save your user name and password for faster login – simply tick the box labelled “Remember my ID and password”. The next time you visit World Book the login prompt will already contain your username and password.

Once you arrive at the World Book home page, you should bookmark the page or add to favourites for easy access to World Book in the future.

World Book Kids—is based on World Book’s award winning Discovery Encyclopedia and is designed to give younger students, ESL students and reluctant readers a rewarding online learning experience. The site illustrations, diagrams and maps enrich more than 2,000 articles selected for appeal and relevance.

World Book Student—forms the foundation of an expansive reference database that includes over 40,000 encyclopedia and reference articles, thousands of links to outside web sites selected by World Book editors and contributors. It also includes an extensive Dictionary and Atlas plus audios, visuals and animations.

World Book Advanced—tailored for the needs of older students, it includes encyclopedic content, integrates primary and secondary source databases plus more than 5,500 e-books in a single search, over 700 e-books can be downloaded to e-readers and iPads, and a wealth of research tools that allow students to customise and save their work.

World Book eBooks- includes highly illustrated, engaging titles that support a span of curriculum areas and reading levels. It includes World Book's entire frontlist and backlist of nearly 400 books. As well as the BOLT collection of titles on appealing topics with accessible, leveled text helps even the most challenged readers understand the material and enjoy reading. You also have access to the World Classics Collection of nearly 2,000 titles gives easy access to titles from well-known authors such as William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain.

**Please remember that login and password information is for students and their families only, and extending this information to people who are not part of our school community could result in the loss of at-home access for our students.**

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