1st Quarter Library Report

It's been a delightfully busy start to the school year with 4,072 items circulated! After literally years of Minecraft Handbooks reigning as our most popular items, we finally have a new #1: Raina Telgemeier's graphic novel, Drama (with 18 loans so far)!

We have already added 205 new items to our collection since August, and I have removed 118 damaged or out-dated items. New additions include several nonfiction series, such as the popular "What Was...." books, in addition to some super engaging new fiction series, like Bird & Squirrel, The Notebook of Doom, and Press Start - SO much "good stuff" to get the kids reading - and coming back for more!

Celebrated children's author & illustrator, Eric Litwin, visited our PreK-5 students on October 7th. He was enthusiastically greeted by students and staff alike. Check out this video!

Here's a link to my 1st quarter "at-a-glance" schedule! Check it out to see a snapshot of all the great things happening in our Library! Whether it's a Mo Willems author study with PreK or a current events research project with my new 8th grade Research & Inquiry elective, one things is for sure: Gardner Dickinson's students are ROCKING in our Library! See below for more "highlights".

All students in PreK - 1st grade enjoyed reading Eric Litwin's series during their September Library visits to help get ready for his visit! We read all 10 of his Pete the Cat, The Nuts, and Groovy Joe books!

First graders are learning all about the season of Fall during Library as we explore nonfiction books together. Students are using ESIFC graphic organizers to record what they're learning.

To help 3rd grade acclimate to the older kid's side of the library, our first classes focus on selecting "Just Right" books and using the "5 Finger Rule". Students are also introduced to our catalog, OPALS, where they learn how to conduct basic searches and how to leave student book reviews!

Fourth grade will make their way around the library (and beyond!) as we explore 9 "stops" for our passport adventure. For each "stop" we will focus on the types of resources in each section, the associated call number, how to locate them in OPALS, and students will practice finding them on our shelves!

Each year we build upon the students' skill set by adding new layers of complexity to the resources and tools they engage with. In 5th grade, students take OPALS to the next level through the use of Pathfinders and Advanced Search.

Sixth graders explored our Rosen eBook collection on Ancient Greece and then learned about Greek Mythology as a pre-set for our first major research project of the year: Create Your Own Demigods, inspired by Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson book series! They are currently reading The Lightning Thief in ELA as a cross-curricular tie-in.

The students taking this exciting new elective have been immersed in the inquiry process of research! This course is driven by student choice and engagement with a focus on the Stripling Model of Inquiry. For the first quarter, students have been researching multiple perspectives on a current event topic of their choice. They have created an annotated bibliography that reflects their understanding of each source's authority, currency, relevance, and bias. Next they created notecards with information from their sources that they will use in their first research writing piece. Throughout this quarter, we have taken time for both personal student reflection, as well as reflection share-outs.

This year I am able to offer Book Clubs to all four sections of 5th & 6th grade. Each group meets with me twice per week to discuss amazing, student-selected literature. Reading four books concurrently is keeping me busy for sure, but I absolutely LOVE doing this with the kids. It's a great experience for them to read really high quality texts, and it allows me to model strategies that enable students to fully immerse themselves in an author's work through researching historical contexts, finding connections to current events and other texts, and thinking deeply about the author's purpose and craft.

Check out this link to my Collaboration Log to see what the teachers and I have been up to lately!

Over the summer I was selected to participate in a 2-day summer institute at Syracuse University where Barbara Stripling rolled out the "Next Gen" Library Curriculum: The Reimagined IFC. As a participant, I agreed to provide professional development to area librarians - which I did in the company of Maureen Squire and Kerrie Burch at out October 22nd Scool Librarian General Membership Meeting.

I am also serving my 2nd year as a Council Member for Questar's School Library Services department.

Next on my PD to-do list is a December workshop featuring Barbara Stripling where we will delve deeper into the Reimagined IFC, and a January workshop where a SUNYA professor will train us on MakerSpaces.

Our Library: Where Media Meets the Mind

Email: lfecura@wynantskillufsd.org
Website: https://sites.google.com/wynantskillufsd.org/lfecura/home
Location: 25 East Avenue, Troy, NY, USA
Phone: (518)283-4600