4th Quarter Library Report

It has been another busy and productive quarter in our Library! I could not be more proud of our students for all the amazing work they have accomplished in each of my classes. I would like to extend a special recognition to this year's graduating 8th-grade class. I have taught most of them for the past 9 years, and I will miss them as they head off to high school in the Fall!

It was great that Mary Klimack, Director of the North Greenbush Public Library, could come and talk to our PreK-5 students about this year's statewide Summer Reading Program titled: All Together Now. Hopefully, many of our students will take advantage of the great program Mary has created!

• Number of class visits = 928
• Items Circulated = 13,615
• New Items Added = 251
• Items Withdrawn = 150
• Most popular book = Drama by Raina Telgemeier with 39 check-outs!

Many of our new books this year were from generous donations made by our PTA and from the Wellness Fair Book Giveaway sponsored by NYS Public Employees Federation (PEF) that was held on April 29, 2023 at the Albany Armory. Imagine my delight when I arrived at the Armory and was greeted by a smiling volunteer handing out bags and encouraging visitors to take as many FREE books as they wanted! Thankfully I brought my husband and daughter so they could help me load up :-) The students have LOVED having so many new items to choose from during their weekly book exchange!

This quarter our Prek students enjoyed an author study of local author and Russell Sage professor, Matthew McElligott. During that unit, they got to design their own "Galactic Pudding" after reading Even Aliens Need Snacks, and then they came up with their own clever book ideas based on Even Monsters Need Haircuts. A popular choice was Even Dinosaurs Need Toys! We finished the quarter by learning about Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Juneteenth!

Kindergarten wrapped up their year in Library by exploring the wonderful books of award-winning author & illustrator, Eric Carle. Listen to the short video clip below of Mason Eisenhandler who spontaneously got up during our second class on Eric Carle and started comparing and contrasting his books with those of Lois Ehlert, whom we had studied last Fall!

First grade spent the 4th quarter studying Caldecott award-winning picture books. We learned the history of the award and examined a variety of Caldecott winners spanning the decades, including Where the Wild Things Are, Kitten's First Full Moon, The House in the Night, Officer Buckle & Gloria, and this year's winner: Hot Dog. We spent three classes studying David Wiesner's award-winning books: Tuesdays, The Three Pigs, and Flotsom. As part of this unit, students learned how picture book call numbers are made, and then they practiced making and alphabetizing call numbers of their own.

In the 4th quarter, 2nd graders practiced identifying the author's purpose by studying Aesop's Fables. After reading and analyzing about a dozen of his fables, students then worked on creating their own fables. Using a graphic organizer planning sheet, they first chose a moral and animal characters, before mapping out the problem and resolution of their plot. I'm planning to collate their amazing work into yet another bound book that will become part of our circulating library collection.

Third grade was also busy writing in the Library this quarter! To conclude our long unit on Folklore, we studied Tall Tales, including The Bunyans, Pecos Bill, and Swamp Angel. Drawing inspiration from the stories we read, students then planned a Tall Tale of their own featuring lots of imaginative exaggerations and creative explanations! Their stories were set in the western USA in the 1800s, and their characters each had a job or occupation that would have been important as the first settlers were taming the wild lands.

Fourth grade did an amazing job as we studied Online Reference Resources in the 4th quarter! During this unit, we explored online dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, and atlases. For each resource, students learned important uses and real-world applications while they practiced navigating within them through guided activities. What better way to learn how a thesaurus can improve your writing than by doing a Mad-Lib-like activity? And how cool is it to use Google Maps to look at the different photos Google has taken of your own house since 2007, and then explore how to use the directions tool to map routes and calculate distances and times using various modes of travel? The students loved this unit and definitely learned a lot!

After practicing how to create citations and notecards ethically using the online research organizer, NoodleTools, 5th grade spent the 4th quarter researching how America is a great "Melting Pot" blended from cultural ideas brought here by generations of immigrants from across the globe. Each student chose a topic that in some way represents American culture, and then they researched where that idea originally came from, what group of immigrants brought it here and when, and what is the modern impact of that topic on America now. All research was housed in NoodleTools and students created reports complete with an ethically soured historic image and bibliography that they shared with the class through presentations.

In an annual tradition I have come to love, 6th grade created Book Talks of their suggested reading for their classmates. First, they researched a little about their chosen authors, housing their citations and notecards in NoodleTools. Then they created six "hint" notecards to entice their classmates to read their chosen book. "Hints" could be anything except a plot summary - so think genre, setting, mood, problem, etc. Finally, students carefully selected 2-4 images that represented their books and created citations and notecards for those as well. Once their research was complete, they put it all together into one infographic-style slide. I then took all their slides and created one large slideshow they can access all summer whenever they need an idea or inspiration for what to read in their time away from school. Awesome work, 6th grade!!

We have had an incredible year in CTE! This quarter we wrapped up our work with two final units; Unit 7 introduced our students to career opportunities in Architecture, Construction, & Manufacturing, and Unit 8 pertained to careers in Public Security, Law, and Corrections. In each unit, students independently explored Questar's related CTE programs that they can take in high school. They also explored specific careers in each career cluster, creating presentations that they shared with the class. Best of all, each unit featured a variety of volunteer community career presenters. For unit 7, we had Doug Belkokopitsky who talked about his career in HVAC, and Joe Bott who discussed his career as an electrician and as a local politician. We ended Unit 7 by learning specifically about careers in Engineering, and we were visited by Doug Dukes (Materials Engineer) and Lisa Williams (Chemical Engineer), who shared their knowledge and insights about this exciting and ever-changing field! In unit 8, we had three more career presenters. Nichole Hurbanek talked to our students about her fascinating career in Forensic Science followed by Kyle Belokopitsky and Keith Hirokawa, who talked about their careers in law and education. I think our students learned a lot about themselves and about possible career pathways during our time together this year. I am excited to hear back from our departing 8th graders after they have had an opportunity to put some of the skills and information they learned in CTE to practice in their lives!

The 8th graders in Music Research spent the 4th quarter researching a music-related topic of their choice in our Build Your Own Inquiry (BYOI) unit. As part of this project, students created research questions followed by annotated citations and notecards for the information they discovered. Topics included "The History of Broadway Musicals", "How Music Impacts Studying & Learning", "The Relationship of Music & Fashion", and "The Evolution of African Music". Once their research was complete, students created an outline for a 3-page research paper. That paper had to include appropriate in-text citations and a bibliography. Next, students designed a lesson about their topic that they had to teach to the class. Each lesson was required to conclude with a 5-question quiz to indicate how effective the lesson was. To say I am proud of the work my Music Research students have done this year is a vast understatement! I am confident they will enter the high school of their choice well prepared for whatever lies ahead :-)

I am immensely grateful to have had so many enriching and informative PD opportunities this year! As a Communication Coordinator for Questar's School Library System, I am able to participate in the four annual Questar SLS meetings which all feature a variety of useful PD presentations. This year’s topics included regional project share-outs, a day of media literacy, and a presentation by Project Look Sharp.

In addition, over the summer I took a 15-hour asynchronous PD through NYSCATE called, Creating a Culture of Digital Citizens. I also attended a Southern NY Library Association workshop called Nonfiction Refresh in October. In March, I attended a workshop featuring Jennifer LaGarde where we discussed strategies for creating Digital Detectives. Also in March, I attended 2 virtual workshops during the regional day of PD: WebQuests & Google Adventure Slides and Recently Published Books Your Students Will Love. In May, I attended the Celebration of Teaching & Learning at SUNYA with Dan DiSotto, Mary Yodis, and 5 of our 8th-grade CTE students who aspire to careers in education. In June, I attended a Department of Education live webinar on Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching & Learning.

I have not yet chosen my summer PD, but I am confident I will find lots of great offerings through all 3 of our area BOCES.

Email: lfecura@Wynantskillufsd.ord
Website: https://sites.google.com/wynantskillufsd.org/lfecura/home
Location: 25 East Avenue, Troy, NY, USA
Phone: (518)283-4600 238