Nail biter, suspenseful … not terms you usually hear to describe a Spell Bowl, but that’s what happened at last night’s (Tuesday, March 20) 33rd annual P-H-M Elementary Spell Bowl. Click to see the photo gallery on the PHM District website (you’ll be able to view & download a high resolution jpg file from the photo gallery by simply clicking the “DOWNLOAD” button on the bottom right hand corner of the photo wile viewing it in the Photo Gallery function).

It was a packed house at Penn High School’s Center for Performing Arts filled with more than 200 third, fourth and fifth graders from all of P-H-M’s 11 elementary schools, along with their family, friends and P-H-M staff from the students’ home schools. Click to see the full list of winners listed below.

Preparation for the Spell Bowl takes weeks, as the students work with their teacher coaches. Each school has three teams (representing each grade) made up of six students, plus one alternate. Preparation includes spelling under pressure, studying word lists, learning about word sources (e.g., Latin roots) and rules such as capitalization and pluralization.

The format of P-H-M’s Spell Bowl is very much like a written test. Similar to a traditional spelling bee, the emcee reads a word aloud and then uses it in a sentence. The students then have 15 seconds to write the word on paper. The words get progressively more difficult through each round. A panel of judges reviews the answers and then posts the scores for the audience to see. 

The 4^th and 5^th grade rounds had to go into “extra innings” for tiebreakers. Bittersweet and Northpoint’s 4^th grade team of two students each went into the tiebreaking round with 29 points. Students had to spell appendicitis, hieroglyphic, reverberate, and Mozambique to win. Eventually Bittersweet beat out Northpoint by successfully spelling Mozambique. Click to see the full photo gallery on the PHM District website.

After that close match, it was time for the 5^th grade round, which also had to be finished with an additional tiebreaker round. This time it was Walt Disney going head to head with Northpoint. Students went through all five tiebreaker words: antiperspirant, spelunking, westernization, putrefy, and Okeechobee Lake.  Judges then had to pull from their “secret bag of words,” giving the students the word affiliate to spell. Finally in the end, Walt Disney came out on top spelling affiliate correctly. 

Each first place winning team got their picture taken with their coach and P-H-M Superintendent Dr. Thacker. See the full list of winners below …

3rd Grade Winners: 1st place – Northpoint with 26 points, Coach Deb DeLaurelle (team pictured to right) 2nd place – Prairie Vista with 23 points, Coach Katie Harris 3rd place – Bittersweet with 20 points, Coach Sheri Hedrick

4th Grade Winners: 1st place – Bittersweet with 37 points, Coach Leslie Metcalf​ (team pictured to right) 2nd place – Northpoint with 36 points, Coach Rosan Morehouse 3rd place – Horizon with 26 points, Coach Jeanne Rehlander

5th Grade Winners: 1st place – Walt Disney with 42 points, Coach Kristie Reynolds​ (team pictured to right) 2nd place – Northpoint with 41 points, Coaches Jen Payne & Charity Grimes-Ford 3rd place – Mary Frank with 29 points, Coach Christine Nisley

Special thanks to P-H-M’s K-5 High Ability Coordinator, Mrs. Anne-Marie Reininga, who is the Spell Bowl manager. This year’s emcee was Kate O’Brien, Penn’s Spell Bowl Coach.

Kids Club 2019 Spring Break registration is now open! Click here to download, complete & print the registration form.

Full-day childcare will be offered at Mary Frank Elementary School for Monday, April 1 – Friday, April 5, 2019, from 6:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. This service is a available for students in all P-H-M schools, families do not have to be currently enrolled in Kids Club to take advantage of this service. The cost is $25 per child per day or $100 per child if attending all 5 days. 

Children will enjoy a variety of educational and recreational activities, as well as crafts for this week.

Registration form and payment are due together no later than Tuesday, March 26.

Children need to bring their own lunch and drink (no pop please).  Morning and afternoon snacks will be provided.

Please click to download, complete and print the registration form. Please return the form send it along with your payment to your child’s school.

If you have questions, please contact Kids Club at (574) 258-9514 or at 258-9587.

*Adobe Acrobat Reader will be required to view these PDFs. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, please visit Adobe’s website at this link www.get.adobe.com/reader/ to download your free version. If you need more help accessing Kids Club information, plesae call (574) 258-9514.

Northpoint Elementary students and programs were the stars of the show at Monday night’s Penn-Harris-School Board meeting (Feb. 25, 2019). Every year, the Board chooses a few schools to hold their Board meetings at. The school meeting sites are a way for the Penn-Harris-Madison Board of School Trustees to not only visit the schools, but to also give the schools a chance to highlight their successes.

This year our school is celebrating its 20^th anniversary. As part of that celebration Principal Diane Wirth had a group of students give “presents” to the School Board Members by sharing with them some “points of pride.” Another group of Northpoint “stars” sang for the Board and their parents. It was a full-house and a good representation of P-H-M’s Triangle of Success, which connects parents, students and teachers! Northpoint is the #2 public elementary school in the state, and last night it was clear why!

Check out the photo gallery below to see the highlights. To download high resolution jpg files from the photo gallery below, just simply click the “DOWNLOAD” button on the bottom right-hand corner of the photo while viewing it in the Photo Gallery function. We are happy to provide this service to you free of charge.

Each February we challenge our student body to read for 1,000,000 minutes— a goal we’ve met every year! This year our “I Love to Read” wall is a GIANT birthday cake, in honor of our school’s 20th anniversary!

Students track their individual reading progress throughout the week. For every 600 minutes that the class reads collectively, the get to place a “sprinkle” on the cake. Each Friday, classes place the “sprinkles” they’ve earned on the cake. 

The cake has six colored layers representing each grade with kindergarten on top and fifth grade on the bottom.

If we hit our goal of one million minutes, the entire school will celebrate with a birthday bash!

We need to give a special thanks to Allison Adams, a former Northpoint parent who continues to volunteer at our school and is the creator of the “I Love to Read Birthday Wall.”

To download high resolution jpg files from the photo gallery below, just simply click the “DOWNLOAD” button on the bottom right-hand corner of the photo while viewing it in the Photo Gallery function. We are happy to provide this service to you free of charge.

Discovery Principal Sheryll Harper & Asst. Principal Troy Kauffman  will be visiting the following Penn-Harris-Madison feeder elementary schools to hold parent information sessions for incoming SY 2019-2020 sixth grade middle school students. The meetings will be held at the elementary school. The same day of the parent meetings Mrs. Harper and Mr. Kauffman will have had visited each elementary school to introduce the 5^th graders to Discovery. Click here for a copy of the 2019-2020 Orientation Packet.

• Tues., Feb. 19, 7:00 p.m., Mary Frank Elementary School
• Wed., Feb. 20, 7:00 p.m., Horizon Elementary School 
• Thurs., Feb. 21, 7:00 p.m., Northpoint Elementary School

After the visits to the elementary schools, the students will then have an opportunity to tour Discovery and meet with the School’s Counselors Mrs. Badur and Mrs. Ward to learn more about their new school.

• Tues., March 26, 9:15 – 11:00 a.m., Mary Frank Student Tour
• ​Wed., March 27, 9:15 – 11:00 a.m., Northpoint Student Tour
• Thurs., March 28, 9:15 – 11:00 a.m., Horizon Student Tour

On Wed., April 17, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m., 5^th grade parents of all three elementary schools will then visit Discovery (meeting in the Cafeteria). Students will lead their parents on a tour of their new middle school. Mrs. Harper and Mr. Kauffman will be available for questions.

Monday, August 19, 6:30 – 7:00 p.m., all incoming Discovery 6^th grade students and their parents will pick up the student’s schedule and attend the Open House and schedule walk through. Students and parents will have the opportunity to meet their 6^th grade LA, Math, Science, Social Studies and Wellness teachers.

Exceptional Education students and parents can meet Discovery’s Exceptional Education teachers and staff and take a tour of the learning areas on Wed., Feb. 27 at 5:00 p.m. and again on Fri., Aug. 16, 3:00-4:00 p.m. For both dates, parents and students should meet in Discovery’s Library on the 2^nd floor.

Middle School Instrument Selection nights for incoming sixth graders are also coming up.

Discovery Instrument Selection Nights

Monday, Feb. 25, 2019

Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019

4:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Click to sign up and for more details.

Penn High School is bringing the famed children’s book “Tuck Everlasting” to the stage. This musical adaptation is a show that the whole family can enjoy

The Penn Fine Arts and Communications Academy is presenting, “Tuck Everlasting, the Musical” on the following dates:

• Friday, March 1, at 7:00 p.m.
• Saturday, March 2, 7:00 p.m.
• Sunday, March 3, 3:00 p.m.

The showings will be held within the Center for Performing Arts (enter through Door C).

Tickets are $10 pre-sale by clicking here to access Penn Theater’s TicketTracker.com online ticket store, or $12 at the door.
 

“Tuck Everlasting” is about a magical spring found deep in the woods that has the power to grant immortality. To drink or not to drink is the question that each character must answer for themselves.

On a deeper level the story wrestles with is living forever as desirable as many people think it is?

So make sure you bring out the whole family, you will not regret it!

Saturday, March 9, 2019

8:45 – 11:30 a.m.

Schmucker Middle School

P-H-M Elementary students, grades K-5

Registration Fee: $5 per child

Click here to register and pay online
*Registration deadline has been extended to Friday, March 1

The Young Authors’ Conference is an annual, beloved event for P-H-M students in grades K-5. The event, sponsored by Corporations for Education, a division of the P-H-M Education Foundation, provides an opportunity for students and their parents to meet and hear from a well-known children’s authors. Click here to view the photo gallery of last year’s event.

Troy Cummings is this year’s celebrity author and illustrator of the popular series “The Notebook of Doom.” Cummings’ illustrations have also been featured on magazines, puzzles, and games! Click hear to learn more about Cummings’ other work. 

As part of the morning activities, participants and parents will not only enjoy a presentation by Cummings, but also a short performance by Penn High School Theater students from their upcoming musical “Tuck Everlasting” (March 1, 2 and 3).

Elementary student attendees will also work in small adult-led breakout sessions sharing their own writing pieces with other P-H-M students.

Parents will attend a special presentation by Bethel College Education professor Dr. Michelle Fish.  Dr. Fish will share how parents can use children’s literature to connect with writing at home. *One parent must accompany students! However, keep in mind that students and parents will separate for a portion of the day.

REGISTRATION: Click here to register and pay online. If you don’t have a PHM Revtrak account, you will need to create one. There is a fee for using this service. If you prefer to register via paper, please fill out the front of the blue envelope that was attached to the hard copy of the flyer that came home with your student. Fill out the blue envelope completely, insert your payment, and return it to your child’s school. Checks should be made payable to: Young Authors’ Conference. Cash is also accepted. The deadline for registration is Friday, February 22, 2019!

CONFIRMATION: Participating students will receive additional information prior to the conference through their home school at the beginning of March.

QUESTIONS: If you have any questions, please contact Lisa Russell at lrussell@phm.k12.in.us.

We are pleased to announce that our fourth and fifth grade students did very well in the WordMasters Challenge™ —a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually.

More than a spelling bee, The WordMasters Challenge™ is an exercise in critical thinking that challenges students to use select words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of logical relationships. Working to solve the analogies helps students learn to think both analytically and metaphorically.

Two teams representing Northpoint Elementary School recently achieved Highest Honors in the WordMasters Challenge™. The fifth grade team scored an impressive 200 points out of a possible 200 in the first of three meets this year, placing first in the nation. In addition, the fourth grade team scored 188 points out of 200 on the first meet, placing third in the nation.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge™ fifth graders Sumlina Alam, Arianna Balinnang, Ashley Chew, Kwynna Clark, Aiza Kamran, Sultaan Khan, Sam Pugh, Haleema Rana, Sophia Runyan and Colleen Ruppert each earned a perfect score of 20 on the challenge. Nationally, only 94 fifth graders achieved this result. 

Other students from Northpoint Elementary School who achieved outstanding results in the meet include fourth graders: Emaan Chaudhry, Gogo Ezenekue, Mia Helm, Landen Hendricks, Leena Khan, Albert Lu, Tess MacFarlane and Kaiyi Zhao, and fifth graders Scarlett Biever, Reese Clark, Aydin Kurama, Joey Pate, Addison Pittman, Aydin Quazi and Zinnia Singh.

Monday, April 29 (Rain Date Wed., May 1)

3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

behind Elm Road Elementary School 

59400 Elm Road, Mishawaka
 

“Running is Elementary” is gearing up for another great year! This is the 11th year for the one mile, non-competitive run which will feature the participation of almost 700 fourth and fifth grade students from all 11 P-H-M elementary schools. This event is FREE to students and takes place on the Penn cross-country course located behind Elm Road Elementary School.

Each school year fourth and fifth graders are encouraged to join the running club at each of P-H-M’s elementary schools. The kids go through this six-week club trained by designated coaches at each school. The end of the six weeks is then celebrated by participating in the Running is Elementary run.

Click to download the RIE forms to sign your student(s) to participate. 

Mary Frank physical education teacher and P-H-M’s 2009 Teacher of the Year Cindy Batalis began this event in 2008. Running has always been a true passion for Batalis and she shares that passion with students by organizing this yearly event.

The event is hosted by the P-H-M Education Foundation and Corporations for Education.

Penn High School will once again host the FIRST Robotics St. Joseph District Event on Saturday, March 9 and Sunday, March 10.

Plan on coming out and enjoying the excitement of more than 40 high school FRC robotics teams from Indiana and Michigan battling it out on a basketball court-sized field with four-foot tall, 120-pound robots! Join more than 5,000 students, coaches, mentors, parents and fans during this one-of-a-kind two-day event! WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW to get a taste of all the excitement!

Cheer on Penn’s Team 135 and make sure to bring your Robotics fans to enjoy Next Gen, an area for students ages K-8, who can get hands-on engaging fun with some of Team 135’s other robots. Next Gen will be open Saturday from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. The entire event is FREE ADMISSION!