Grant Recipient - Monique Ryan // New York State history is the focal point of 4th grade Social Studies instruction. A key topic that is covered is the construction of the Erie Canal. This grant funded an hour long live program by professor and National Geographic author Martha Kendall. The use of instruments and songs to bring this time-period to life showed the children firsthand the key role that the canal played throughout history.

Grant Recipient - Patrick Brown // Building on instruction delivered during a Fall 2012 workshop, Dr. Billmeyer will return for two days of workshops to meet in small grade level groups. This more intimate format will facilitate greater targeted content-area literacy techniques and strategies. The school district has committed to fund ½ of this $9000 program.

Grant Recipients - Lauren Pohl and Joshua Williams //A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the play featured in the 8th grade English/Language Arts curriculum, which serves to provide students with an introduction to the works of William Shakespeare. There is no better way to introduce Shakespeare than through a live professional quality production. This grant funded a field-trip to Syracuse Stage for a performance. This opportunity also allowed students who have never seen a live theater production to experience one.

Grant Recipient - Lori Usifer // An interdisciplinary project in the 7th grade involves students researching and reporting on their family history. This project incorporates social studies and language arts, while also teaching research skills. This grant would fund a pilot program which utilizes a new software program, Proquest, to help students research ancestry.

Grant Recipient - Kelley McQuiggan // Assistance provided for travel expenses to OOTM Worlds.

Grant Recipient -Sharon O'Connell // Lynne Cox is a speaker and author of “Swimming to Antarctica”. In her book, she recounts her years of preparation and the experiences associated with swimming most of the major “open water venues” like the English Channel, Alaska to Russia and other famous bodies of water around the world, all leading up to her world record swim to Antarctica. Her experiences are lessons in geography, diplomacy and life skills which she will share during an assembly with middle school students. She will also present at a community event later in the evening.

Grant Recipient - Patrick Brown // Developing strategic readers who “think about their thinking” and strategic reading in the content areas (such as social studies, science, math and health) is the central focus for this grant. Dr. Rachel Billmeyer is a renowned expert on this subject and will present a workshop for teachers on strategies and teaching methods to accomplish this goal.

Grant Recipient - Dannie Taylor // Teaching poetry as performance art in the classroom and performing it on stage helps improve children’s reading, writing, listening, content knowledge and speaking skills. This grant provided funding to create and implement strategies for incorporation of poetry into the third-grade curriculum.

Grant Recipient - Colleen O'Hara // Students often learn best by hands on teaching methods and projects. For the Consumer Sciences course, this grant provided a new unit of learning to teach the use of sewing machines, while supporting Common Core state standards like math and history. Projects will include taking and calculating measurements; researching and designing historical period clothing; and creating items from recycled materials.

Grant Recipient -Deb Covell // The newest growing area in children’s literature is the graphic novel, which is a highly visual book with colorful drawings and text boxes. This type of book has been found to be particularly successful in engaging reluctant readers. This grant provided funding to purchase 25 computer drawing tablets for a new unit of study which will allow students to create their own digital stories. The computer drawing tablets will become an integral part of the library literacy program with digital storytelling as a key component.

Grant Recipients - Connie Bohrer and Donna Dennihy // The 6 +1 Traits of Writing program is used at State Street to help teach the mandated New York State Department of Education standards. Donna Dennihy applied for and received a grant last year from the foundation to work on one of the traits. She incorporated various forms of music including podcasts, videos, and original recordings from musicians, using her own personal Macintosh computer. This grant provided funding to continue this multimedia program to other traits. Programming will be shared with all fifth-grade classrooms.

Grant Recipient - Sharon O'Connell // The American Association of School Librarians conference is the premier conference for school librarians and is held every two years. These conferences provide endless ideas for library/reading related units of study and especially techniques and programs to engage all students, whether proficient or reluctant readers. This grant partially funded participation by the middle school librarian at the 2011 conference in Minneapolis by paying her registration fee and contributing to her travel expenses.