March Happenings

As always, the library is a busy place! This month brought us Kathleen Bart, our visiting author/illustrator, and how lucky we were to have her! Kathleen, a former designer for Ralph Lauren, really engaged our students with her presentations and was nice enough to draw me as a city girl teddybear on the red carpet! Students and staff alike thoroughly enjoyed her three day visit at Searingtown.

We also got in some new books, including a new set of president books...with three new books about President Barack Obama! Look for new state books and the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book.

Our Searingcott contest has ended and the winner of the award will be announced very soon. We will also announce the student winners for the medal design contest.

Vote for the Searingcott Medal!!

February Happenings

To those of you who are visiting here for the first time, welcome! Feel free to leave a comment on our Library Blog! Here is a recap of the exciting things happening in our library during the month of February.

Our kindergarten classes enjoyed Groundhog Day and Valentine's Day stories, while our first graders are involved in an online project created by a teacher from Australia! The Tooth Tally project is a collaborative project that includes first grade classrooms from all over the world! We are tallying up the amount of teeth lost by each of our first grade classes over the months of February, March, and April. Students drew pictures of the tooth fairy which we shared with our global friends and have been learning all about tooth care. We are enjoying wonderful books, such as Andrew's Loose Tooth (read by the author, Robert Munsch) and Open Wide, Tooth School Inside. We emailed Robert Munsch to tell him how much we enjoyed hearing him read this funny story and have created drawings to send to him...we hope he puts them on his fantastic website!

Second graders have been researching the illustrators they chose for the Searingcott Medal and designing medals to be awarded to the winner. We are awarding our medals to illustrators who have never won the prestigious Caldecott Medal! The contenders are: Eric Carle, Jan Brett, Dyanne DiSalvo, and Patricia Polacco. Winners will be voted on and announced in March.

In third grade, students continue to refine their information literacy skills. We are focusing now on learning how to use the encyclopedia.

Fourth grade research has begun again with two new classes. Mr. Dugger's class has just begun their "HistorySpace" project, where they will research explorers. More information on this amazing project will be coming soon! Ms. Alexander's class are sharpening their research skills with our Flying High WithResearch WebQuest. They will soon earn their 'research wings' and be ready to navigate a research project.

Finally, Mrs. Ruggiano's and Ms. Capello's fifth graders have joined Mr. Soloway's class on Survivor Island! Survivor M.D.: Long Island, is our latest research project. In this scenario, our students have transformed into doctors specializing in different body systems. We have cardiologists, orthopedic surgeons, neurologists, gastroenternologists, rheumatologists and pulmonologists! Each week or so, our doctor tribes are given an "Immunity Challenge" where they must work together as a team to complete research tasks. Ask your children about this fun project!

We are looking forward to our author visit next month. Long Island author, Kathleen Bart, will be visiting us for three days, thanks to our wonderful PTA.