McKelvie Library News Blog

This is an additional gentle reminder that all library books and textbooks are due back to the library on Friday, June 3rd. Classes will begin to come to the library next week to return their textbooks. Students are responsible for returning any library books they have borrowed by next Friday, June 3rd. In Destiny Discover your child can check their account to see what book(s) they currently have out. If they have any questions, please have them come see me as soon as possible next week. The library will remain open for classes and for students to come for recess and for a quiet reading/research spot however, books will not be circulating  5th graders will be returning a Wonders Reading/Writing Workshop textbook and a Wonders Literature Anthology textbook. 6th graders are returning a green Big Ideas Math textbook and possibly a red Big Ideas Math Excel textbook.  Thank you for all of your support as we work together to get all of the library and textbooks back into our space f...

Drumroll please... Ground Zero by Alan Gratz is the 2022 Great Stone Face Award winner! This book received 418 votes out of 2,007 cast of the twenty titles selected by the Great Stone Face Committee. If your child has not yet read this historical fiction novel, be sure to have them check it out! This title is available at the McKelvie Intermediate School Library, the Bedford Public Library and on Sora, in both audiobook and ebook versions! Congratulations to Alan Gratz (the author of Ground Zero ) and thank you to all of the McKelvie students who voted during the month of April for their favorite Great Stone Face nominee. The 2023 nominees are now available to check out at the McKelvie Library. Emily Sennott, Head of Children’s Services, came to the library on Friday for Lunch and Learn sessions. These four sessions took place during 5th and 6th grade lunch times. There were a total of 43 students who attended these sessions to learn about summer reading at the Bedford Public Library ...

A HUGE shout out to our amazing Bedford PTG and our McKelvie Administration for the wonderful Staff Appreciation celebration. What a fun week celebrating our staff. Thank you, thank you! Book tastings, research, and read alouds were the focus of the library this week. With this summer-like weather in the air… we are beginning to think about summer reading! Next Friday, May 20, 2022,  Emily Sennott, Head of Children’s Services at the Bedford Public Library, will be visiting our school library to talk about summer reading opportunities including the Junior Librarian Program. Children are invited to bring their lunch to the library (there will be an allergy-safe table) and listen to what opportunities are available. By doing this during lunch periods, children will still be able to enjoy recess outdoors.  There will be several afternoons this summer for your child to come to their school library to one of our Relax & Read events! These events will be held in the McKelvie Libr...

Welcome back, McKelvie! A HUGE thank you to all of the families and staff who participated in our “Oh, the Places our Books Go!” activity. We had books travel from out of the country to the backyards of Bedford. Our books visited national memorials to beaches. Fun images and captions are displayed on the windows outside of our library.  The library continues to have a steady flow of circulations and classes! Many classes in 5th grade are working on opinion essays and are accessing our books about points of view as well as pros and cons. The children have such great talking points while exploring the variety of topics they chose to write about. Click HERE and HERE to see students from the Cleghorn/Hayward pod investigating some of our resources.  It is not too early to talk about summer reading, is it? Our amazing Bedford Public Library is gearing up. The Junior Librarian program at the Bedford Library is back this summer! Register for one of the upcoming Junior Librarian Inf...

THIS IS A TIME-SENSITIVE REPOST : Happy spring vacation! The library is looking for photos of where books travel over our upcoming spring vacation. I would love to have photographs of books (it does not have to be a school library book) with their readers to display in the library windows with the caption "Oh, The Places Our Books Go!" This can be as simple as snapping a photograph with you and a book in a comfy spot at home or you and a book in the car heading to the mountains of NH. Email the picture with your child's name and the location to cotej@sau25.net. I will print and display all of the pictures I receive. I can't wait to see where our students relax and read at home or wherever the books have traveled. If you have a special furry friend, feel free to capture them with your child reading, but please don't let pets snack on the books.  🐶    📖   Feel free to send these images to me starting Saturday, April 23, 2022. These images make for a fun display on...

Happy weekend, McKelvie! With April being National School Library Month and National Library Week celebrated from April 3 - 9, 2022, the New Hampshire Great Stone Face Voting link is open. As stated in a previous post, McKelvie students have always had a choice as to whether or not they would like to participate in the annual voting process. Great Stone Face voting has taken place since the school's inception in 2007. As you may recall, this vote is for 4th through 6th graders in the state of NH. As long as your child has read or listened to two or more of these nominees, they will be able to cast their ballot. The online ballot will be open until April 30th. The link can be found on the “GSF” tab off of the McKelvie Library website. Please be sure to take a look at the nominees linked HERE . All of these titles are available at our school library and on Sora as either ebooks or audiobooks. These titles are also available at the Bedford Public Library. The winner of the 2022 Great ...

Many students have been making sure that two or more of the 2021-2022 New Hampshire Great Stone Face Nominees have been read or listened to before the April 30th voting deadline! Please ask your child which nominees they have enjoyed! Click  HERE  to be redirected to the "GSF" tab found off of the library website for a list of the current nominees. You will also see a Screencastify video on Monday, April 11th, about how students can proceed when they are ready to vote. An announcement will be made this Monday, as well, regarding the Great Stone Face Voting. The statewide voting results will be This week we had budding science explorers from the Donahue/Oliveira/Ouellette pod come to investigate books and databases while narrowing in on an experiment/topic/person that is of interest to them in the field of science. It is beyond fascinating to listen to the conversations and connections being made. There were a wide variety of interests expressed and the research and investigat...

Last Friday I attended the New Hampshire School Library Media Association Conference. What a wonderful day presenting, connecting with other librarians, listening, and learning. This is why a post was not made last week from Congratulations to Ryan O. who is in Mrs. Burke's homeroom. He found a Golden Ticket last week! This ticket was found when he opened a book while browsing in the library. HERE is an image of Ryan and his prize.  Congratulations also to our 6th "Search Slip" winner of the school year! Quentin F. in Mr. Donahue's homeroom. Quentin is an avid library user and is this month's winner. Click HERE to see Quentin, his "Search Slip" and his prize. Enjoy your sweet treat, Quentin. April is a big month in the world of libraries! Not only do we celebrate School Library Month but we also recognize National Poetry Month and we honor National Autism Awareness Month. This is done via displays and activities including a magnetic poetry station, a S...

What a great second week back from winter break! The weather seems to be slowly turning to what we would expect for spring-like NH. The first official day of spring is Sunday. It was wonderful to have the library windows open on Friday. The fresh air was wonderful. At the end of last week the library was gifted an amazing collection of Westward Expansion pieces. This is an amazing collection of nonfiction texts from the Opitz/Parnell pod including properly formatted MLA works cited documents. The collection is absolutely stunning and very informative. The book is currently in the library on our “coffee table” for the McKelvie community to read and enjoy, if they wish. Click HERE to see the front cover of hard work put into the texts by pod 5-5. As expected, as the temperatures warm up, more of our “recess regulars”  are heading out to enjoy some fresh air at recess times. However, the library remains a place for all to relax, read, connect, and play. Click HERE to see some of our...

  I hope all of our McKelvie Community had a restful winter break! Based on the steady stream of children coming into the library this week, a lot of reading took place over the break. Over break the library obtained several new titles and many of these are already in the hands of our readers. Be sure to check in with your child to see what they are reading! Have a discussion with your child about the title(s) they are enjoying. Books being published today are different from the books that were published even just ten years ago. Congratulations to our 5th “Search Slip” winner of the year! 6th grader, Alexis B., along with many others, entered our monthly library raffle by filling out a “Search Slip” with information regarding the book they were looking for in the McKelvie Library. Each month all of the “Search Slips” are collected and one winner is drawn from all of the entries. Click HERE to see Alexis (Mrs. Waldman’s homeroom), her “Search Slip,” and the envelope containing a gi...

We have just one more week until our winter break! One of the highlights from our week here in the library was our Westward Expansion Museum. The students from the Opitz/Parnell pod were able to view the work of their classmates. It was such a positive experience to view all of their hard work in the forms of Adobe Creative Cloud websites, nonfiction pieces and newspapers. We even had Westward Expansion plays performed. Google Slides images provided the backdrop scenery to the plays.  There have been several inquiries from students regarding the 2022 Fisher Cats Reading Challenge. This is wonderful! Two free tickets for reading five titles. I do not have the physical sheets this year as the Fisher Cats Reading Challenge has gone digital. Please follow this link for more information: https://bit.ly/3gMybJb Our statistics continue to be high for Sora, our ebook and audiobook platform! McKelvie readers and listeners, Sora is a wonderful resource and I continue to encourage you to use ...

Happy weekend, McKelvie! What a busy week we had here in the library. We had book tastings, note taking classes, works cited lessons using a citation generator called MyBib, and we learned how to create a web page using Adobe Creative Cloud Express (formally Adobe Spark) with our Digital Learning Specialist, Susan Cavanaugh. This was in addition to having students and staff circulate through the library getting what they needed. This is a bustling space and I love it! Our school library is extremely active. With the temperatures warming up for Saturday, I am dreaming of spring. Please do not forget about the 2022 Fisher Cats Reading Challenge. Use this URL to see a flyer sent by the Fisher Cats as a reminder regarding this spring reading challenge opportunity. https://bit.ly/3gMybJb Have a great weekend. Enjoy the warm temperatures forecasted for Saturday. Happy Super Bowl Sunday. ~ Mrs. Cote 📚

The library continues to be busy with readers and researchers! Several classes have been in to learn how to format a works cited document using the Modern Language Association style of formatting. It really is impressive to watch these children cite their sources as they research. McKelvie, Carolyn Mail (McKelvie Reading Specialist) and Julie Cote (McKelvie Librarian) are excited to present another before-school opportunity for students, a second session of Chapter Chat Club! During this before-school club, we will be reading and discussing this middle grade novel for 7 weeks. There will be no meeting on Tuesday the week of vacation or the following week on Tuesday, March 8th, due to the scheduled workshop day. This before-school club will begin Tuesday, February 8th, through Tuesday, April 5th. We have selected a 2015 publication titled Masterminds book 1 by Gordon Korman. Please click HERE to link to the registration form with additional details. This form will open Sunday, January ...

For it being a short week, the McKelvie Library was bustling with all sorts of activities. First thing on Tuesday morning, the students began streaming in the doors to return the “good fit” books they completed over their four day weekend and began to search for more! I always love this as it means our children are reading! Due to the temperatures, indoor recess at the library means an especially active time. Our school community completed yet another puzzle containing 1,000 pieces! It was especially heartwarming to see that right before the last piece was fit in, a student came to announce this! They knew it was a big deal and wanted a specific individual who had been working really hard on putting together the puzzle to have the honor of putting in the last piece. Click HERE to see the children’s picture book puzzle completed! There are no missing pieces this time.  Additionally, we continue to have many pods come to the library for note taking lessons and research! BrainPOP, on...

This week was very busy in the library! We began the week with the Parnell/Opitz pod coming to locate images related to a Westward Expansion subtopic that they are going to read and research about. The Britannica Image Quest image was imported into a Google Doc or Google Draw and then the image was cited. The students then created guiding questions that they would like to find the answers to as they continue to research. These questions were developed as they kept in mind the purpose of writing nonfiction to teach a reader. This pod then continued to research using the print titles we have in the library.  The Allen/Mazzella pod came to the library to learn the basics of Flipster (an EBSCO resource) to view our digital periodicals. This lesson included how to look at previous issues of periodicals that may tie into curriculum units. The students were able to explore one or more of the eight titles we subscribe to. We also learned how to use the Scholastic FLIX suite of ebooks. The ...

Happy 2022, McKelvie! 🎉 I hope this post finds all of our McKelvie community healthy and happy! I hope this new year is filled with many great reads. Is it too early to think about spring and baseball? The 2021-2022 Fisher Cats Reading Challenge is underway. McKelvie is registered to participate in the Fisher Cats Reading Challenge presented by Eversource. Click HERE to find the new online form which promotes reading for enjoyment. This form allows an adult/caregiver and a child to type in and submit 5 individual reading-level-appropriate (“Good Fit”) book titles. Follow the instructions on the form. After submitting the form due by March 18, 2022, the 2 FREE tickets will be mailed to the address you list. There is a $3.00 processing fee ONLY if additional tickets are PURCHASED. You can select 1 of the 7 games that an adult and your child would like to attend on this form. The forms are due to the Fisher Cats on or before Friday, March 18, 2022. Please take advantage of this challe...

"Season's Readings" from the McKelvie Library! I just wanted to take a moment to wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season. Cherish the time with your family, child(ren), and good friends. Enjoy all the magic that the holidays bring. Click HERE to see a sign in one of our library windows. Be sure to take some time to curl up with a great read! Happy 2022, McKelvie. Stay safe and well. ~Mrs. Cote 📚

Happy weekend, McKelvie! We have had a very busy couple of weeks here in our school library. First, I wanted to recognize Joe C. in Mrs. Kelly’s homeroom for locating the 2nd “Golden Ticket” of the year. Joe was awarded a prize to Barnes & Noble. Click HERE to see an image of Joe and the title in which he found a “Golden Ticket”. The Opitz/Parnell pod used our McKelvie print resources to create amazing timelines of some of the major events that happened during the Westward Expansion time period. These readers and researchers were genuinely excited and enthusiastic about finding information, taking notes, illustrating these events and forming timelines. These timelines were created to get a better understanding of these events and where they fell during the Westward Expansion period. Click HERE and HERE to see some of the amazing student-created work.  The Crowell/Lordan/Davidson pod came for “Book Tasting” this past week as well. “Book Tastings” give the students an opportun...

I hope everyone had a healthy and relaxing five-day break. Upon our return, I was able to check in with many of our students and it appears that the break allowed for some much needed pleasure reading! For many of our students, reading is a personal journey and many are using reading for pleasure as an escape. For children and adults, books are a form of escapism! Please check in with your child(ren) to see what they are currently reading. Right before the Thanksgiving break, our community puzzle was completed (almost… 3 pieces were missing). HERE is an image of the puzzle. We have already started working on another one! It was a busy first week back at McKelvie. We started off with the Cleghorn/Hayward POD coming to the library to “sample” books via a “Book Tasting.” The students in these classes were able to “bite into” various genres and types of books to see if they wanted to check out the title at the end of our reservation. This type of exercise is an important way to get studen...

Please make sure that your child(ren) have at least one "Good Fit" book and another in the "pipeline" for the five days off from school beginning next Wednesday. This is a perfect opportunity to enjoy some pleasure reading. Be sure to find some time to relax and read, McKelvie! If you have a car ride or some fireside downtime, please remember that Sora is an amazing option if you and your family would like to listen to an audiobook or read an Ebook. With the Sora app downloaded, you will never be without a great book. Personally, I have found Sora to be a great source of entertainment during car rides as it keeps backseat occupants engaged and entertained (minimal squabbling and less attention seeking from the driver)! Sora is an amazing resource that I encourage all to explore and utilize.  This is an additional reminder that there is an app for Destiny Discover so that the students can listen to audiobooks we have in our Destiny catalog. Students can also read eBo...