With all the focus on the strong and stringent standards of New York state, writing has become a pinnacle of all classrooms. In a cooperative venture between the Seymour Library of Brockport and two 5th grade classes at the Fred W. Hill School, students are extending their reading and writing skills utilizing interesting and challenging projects.

Two 5th grade classes, Mr. Albrecht's and Maar's, approached Jennifer Lindsey, the children's librarian at the Seymour Library, early this school year about displaying many ongoing book projects that all students in their classes worked on. "From this point, the ideas from the students mushroomed," stated 5th grade teacher, Chris Albrecht. "We participate in submitting writing samples to our school's literary magazine. One student had the idea to make and bind a poetry book and distribute it as a local resource of culture."

As a result, students donated two books to the Seymour Library for their private collection and two books to their school library. The book entitled, "Hear Our Thunder," is a collection of the poetry of 42 students' perspectives of weather. Modeling the artistic talents of Shel Silverstein whose books include "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "Light in the Attic," "Hear Our Thunder" is illustrated with simple ink line drawings by class artist, Matt Rockow. Ten of the poems included in the book have been submitted to state and national poetry contests sponsored by Scholastic Book Company.

In conjunction with the poetry book, an enriched group of seven students has been diligently working on a parody of the well known children's book, "McBroom's Wonderful One Acre Farm" by Sid Fleishman. The students, including, Mary Scheda, Matt Rockow, Abby Avery, Emma Carpenter, Adam Cote, and Breanne Glynn, have been working on this project for almost a year-and-a-half. The finished project, which should be completed in March, will be a 31 scene play. This too, will be presented as a gift to the Seymour Library in the spring.

Both books will be entered in the "Kids are Authors" contest sponsored by Scholastic.