2nd Quarter Library Report

This quarter's featured collaboration is book speed dating! Karin Carmody, Sam Swart, and I began to brainstorms ways we could really engage students in independent reading this year. Karin wanted a "genre of the month", so over the long holiday break, I suggested we try "book speed dating". Right after break, we had both sections of 6th grade meet in the Library where I had pre-selected over 100 fiction titles from our collection and arranged them on our 8 tables by sub-genre including mystery, high interest, adventure, historical fiction, horror, disabilities & social issues, realistic fiction, and sci-fi/fantasy. Students had graphic organizer trifolds that they used to record their "first impressions" of the books they "met". After rotating through four rounds, students looked back at their notes to decide which books they wanted to get to know better. At the end, if students found a "match", they got to check their book out. It was a fun morning, and best of all, the kids were still talking about their books 7 periods later when they came back up for Library class!

I'm excited about two other big collaborations coming up next quarter. First, Dan DiSotto was so intrigued when I told him about "Book Speed Dating", he asked if we could try it with 5th grade. Therefore I'll be working on a date for that in the coming weeks. And secondly, I'm coordinating a social studies unit with Gina Mahoney in 2nd grade using North Greenbush Town Historian Jim Greenfield's book, Narratives of North Greenbush: Building History from Our Community's Past. This ties in with the work Gina's been doing with her classes connecting the students to their community, like she did with her Lego project where the students recreated important landmarks from Wynantskill's Main Street. We're hoping to schedule Jim to come in towards the end of the unit to talk to the kids about our rich local history, and how important it is to engage with primary resources.

Our four enrichment book clubs are keeping me on my toes with plenty of excellent reading choices! I've lost count, but I would estimate that between the four groups, we've already read 16 books so far this year! Right now we're reading Polaris, The Land of Stories, Look Both Ways, and City of Ember.

After finishing our Lois Ehlert author study in early December, we moved on to the books of Jan Brett, which are perfect for snowy days! Using the picture clues she includes, we are learning to make inferences and predictions to enhance our understanding of both the story structure and the content. Students love looking for hedgehogs in her books, knowing Jan has a pet hedgehog (as well as chickens!), too!

Upon completing our Fall nonfiction unit, we launched right into a unit on winter! Both units were designed to incorporate a variety of the updated ESIFC assessments. Students are doing a fantastic job conceptualizing things like equinoxes and solstices, as well as connecting what they learned about Fall to what they're currently learning about winter. And here's a homework question for you: Do you know what subnivean means? Well, our incredible 1st graders do, thanks to the book Over & Under the Snow by Kate Messner!

Our 2nd grader's are just finishing the final drafts of the biographies they wrote in Library class. In one of our favorite projects, students interviewed a family member or friend over Thanksgiving, asking questions we devised based upon our earlier biography unit in the Fall. They then spent weeks turning their interviews into first rough drafts, and now final drafts for our annual 2nd Grade Biography Book, which we bind and circulate in our collection.

Third Grade explored Australia, Kenya, and the United States using a variety of print and electronic resources. Students used several of the reference materials available in our subscription to Britannica Online, as well as the books, If the World Were a Village and What the World Eats to learn about these countries before they finally completed a triple venn diagram to show what they learned.

Second quarter stops included junior nonfiction, biography, fiction, regular nonfiction and e-books! At each stop, we discuss the resources in the collection, what the call number looks likes, and how to find the specific resources using our catalog, OPALS. Students complete a hands-on activity at each stop that requires them to use our catalog and their knowledge to locate items independently on the shelves.

Our 5th graders spent most of the second quarter learning about what it means to be a digital citizen in the 21st century, focusing on ways to be responsible and safe online, as well as how to effectively evaluate web resources for authority, accuracy, and relevance. This unit ends with the creation of secure accounts in NoodleTools where students will now focus their efforts on the ethical use of relevant information for a variety of research purposes.

Our 6th graders complimented the whole-class read-aloud of Rick Riordan's, The Lightning Thief, by researching a God or Goddess of their choice from Ancient Greek Mythology, and then creating their own demigod. Project share-outs and reflections just wrapped up this week.

The Research & Inquiry students worked on a "Build Your Own Inquiry" project throughout December & January. Styled after the popular "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from the 1980's, students were encouraged to take the reigns on this project from start to finish. Topics included Celiac Disease, the Legalization of Marijuana, and Social Anxiety Disorders. Although they're really getting the hang of the research portion of their projects, we still need to work on creating audience appropriate presentations that truly reflect their learning and original thinking in a meaningful and engaging manner.

This has been a quiet quarter for PD due to the cancellation of the 12/4/19 Reimagined ESIFC Workshop I planned to attend at WSHWE BOCES as a follow up to the PD I provided in October for our regional librarians. The presenter, Barbara Stripling, had a last minute family emergency, but assures us she will reschedule as soon as she can. In the meantime, I did attend the Makerspaces Best Practices & Edison Workshop held at Questar on 1/15/20, where we learned from SUNY Albany professor, Shannon Mersand, and School Librarian, Sheri McNair, effective ways to weave makerspaces into our curriculum. Best of all, participants got to keep their Edison Robots!

Email: lfecura@wynantskillufsd.org
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Phone: (518)286-4600